Monika: Did you have a name for this plan?
Sarah: Someone - maybe Cathy? - commented that the object was to come off as total flakes until the day we surprised everyone by being deadly serious and well-organized. I joked, “Trans Flakes! It’s not just for breakfast anymore! :-)” Well, the name stuck, though I never really liked it.
Along the way, we thought the new It’s Time America! organization might be the path forward for national activism, but we found that leadership to be compromised too, much too cozy with HRC. We realized we had to build a new national trans organization from the ashes, one that was ours, not compromised. That organization became NTAC.
Monika: How did you come up with the name NTAC?
Sarah: Initially, it was to be called the “National Transgender Rights Organization,” coined by Joann Roberts. But as the web designer nerd, I found ntrc.org was already taken. A small tweak, from “Rights” to “Advocacy,” gave us the possibility of ntac.org, which I snapped up before anyone else could.
And compressed into this incredibly busy period, the trans community was fighting for inclusion in GLB organizations everywhere, both locally and nationally. Locally, a publication called Outlook did a story on me, discussing the exclusionary missions of GLB organizations. Students at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, OH, staged a massive protest against Stonewall Columbus at the annual Pride march for trans exclusion.
Monika: Did that lead to any change?
Sarah: It certainly got their attention! After much haranguing, Stonewall invited me onto their board, but only after a substantial contribution from Mary Ann Horton. They also brought in regional power brokers to woo me with promises of “power.” I insisted I didn’t want power, I wanted justice.
Around the same time, ITOH!, along with activist friends from Kentucky, Dawn Wilson, Monica Roberts, and Anne Casebeer, ambushed Donna Redwing of HRC with tough questions about pre-lobbying and trans exclusion at a town hall. Trans people were also protesting HRC annual fundraising dinners. HRC ultimately invited two ITOH! reps to attend a dinner and talk with other leaders. Sue Davis and I went. HRC sent a couple of devastatingly cute women to try to seduce us, not with power, but in the other way. Nothing of substance was achieved.
Anyway, whether the fight was local, national, or statewide, it was all the same fight. We were at war with Hydra. And back then, about 90% of the fight was centered around employment discrimination.
|
| The article that incited the massive protest from Antioch students. |
Sarah: Well, yes. Of course in academia, we’re supposed to be smart, so my transition didn’t help my career in the least. I think I was most hurt by the distance that grew between me and some of my closest friends and colleagues. In particular, my postdoc sponsor, with whom I had enjoyed collaborating on some rather exciting research, also having many deep discussions and productive brainstorming sessions, simply wouldn’t talk to me anymore.
Monika: You were also at an especially vulnerable point in your career at that time. How did the timing of your transition intersect with the realities of academia and funding pressures?
Sarah: Many academics are able to hang on to their positions and professional standing, but I got hit with a forced outing right when I was the most vulnerable - a postdoctoral fellow struggling (and failing) to land a grant at a time when grant funding had declined to 3% of applications, during the “Decade of the Brain,” which had precipitated a glut of new neurobiologists. I was very fortunate I had other ways I could support myself, without having to depend on anyone else.
Monika: Despite all of that, you’ve mentioned moments of unexpected healing later on. Did any form of reconciliation or closure ever come from that period?
Sarah: In a bittersweet way, yes. Over time, some of the negative feelings softened. When my advisor died, we all had a virtual reunion conference - everyone ever connected to his lab. My colleagues had missed me and remembered me fondly. It was a healing moment for me.
Most people had a very different experience that had a couple of familiar patterns: Some were summarily fired or harassed out of the job, often including denial of restroom usage. Others found support initially, but then relationships with coworkers and supervisors would sour. Eventually there would be a conspicuously terrible performance review after innumerable glowing reviews, and the person would be fired. Then finding another job was difficult at best, because being trans was a nonstarter. Some managed to find employment by going stealth, but their history always somehow caught up with them, usually through document trails. This was an ongoing national crisis.
Monika: Activism often forces impossible choices between personal safety, career stability, and speaking out. What did being a trans activist cost you, not in theory, but in very concrete, lived ways?
Sarah: Well, I guess I would start by saying I thought I didn’t really have a lot left to lose at the time. Without going into too much detail, I had already lost my family, my friends, and my career. I was in the process of a divorce, but I had negotiated a good shared parenting agreement, which was being enforced by a good judge. I thought I had less to lose than most other people I knew, so I might as well be the one who fights.
Monika: So you were kind of thinking, “I’ve already lost so much, I can take the risk”?
Sarah: Yeah. Unfortunately, sometimes things turn on a dime.
I wasn’t just a trans activist. I took on GLB causes as well. We of ITOH! had decided that if we were to ask for trans inclusion from other organizations, we should be GLB-inclusive. We were technically a “TBLG” organization, which irked many a “G.”
Same-sex marriage was among the causes that really illustrated the intersectionality of our issues and the wisdom of fighting together. I had warned lawmakers and judges that by both banning same-sex marriage and banning gender marker changes (post-Littleton v. Prange), they were setting the stage for legal same-sex marriages between trans and cisgender people.
|
|
Equality Begins at Home Ohio, 1999 - with Mary Ann Horton, Cathy Platine, and Sarah Fox. |
Monika: Did that actually happen?
Sarah: It did. A very good friend of mine, a trans woman, in a highly political act of defiance, married a lesbian woman and demanded that a transphobic judge perform the ceremony. He was not pleased. I then wrote that judge a letter reminding him that what I had warned about had just played out.
I suppose that was the height of arrogance on my part, and I paid for it. That judge oversaw the domestic judges, including the one assigned to my divorce. A new judge was brought in, who, in her words, had been “ordained by God to save the children,” and my divorce was transferred to her.
Monika: Oh no… that sounds like it went downhill fast.
Sarah: It certainly did. With this change, my ex violated the shared parenting agreement and denied me visitation. Motions I filed with the court were met with hostility. People who had been in my corner turned their backs on me, with no explanation.
The final straw came when the opposing attorney threatened in the family court lobby to punch me and lay me out on the floor. My attorney found him and the judge laughing about it in her chambers. The judge made it clear she didn’t appreciate my LGBTQ activism, so she would never enforce the shared parenting agreement. She said that if I didn’t desist in my “frivolous” motions to see my children, I would be fined and jailed for contempt of court. I considered filing a federal civil rights suit, but my attorney reminded me that I would have to drag my children through it. For their sake, I decided to let it go. That was a hard, hard lesson.
After that, the harassment and anonymous email threats started. Law enforcement refused to help me. They wouldn’t even take a report. I have to admit I was pretty scared. It was not long before I moved to another state.
Monika: I’ve read a couple of books written by wives whose husbands came out as transgender women. Based on those accounts, and on my own experience, I noticed that our transition is often perceived as a form of egoism or self-expression, something seen as oblivious to the wounds it can inflict on the people closest to us. Reflection and understanding often seem to come only with time. My partner remarried, but we stayed in touch and eventually became friends, something I would never have believed possible back then.
Sarah: My experience was very similar. I don’t feel like transitioning was a choice, because living in the wrong skin and social role was no longer survivable. However, she didn’t see it that way. She considered it a profoundly selfish act. My divorce was incredibly ugly, as my ex was intent on destroying me, even if she destroyed herself and the kids in the process.
However, many years later, our elder son suffered a ruptured appendix, and my ex asked if I could come help with his care. I did, and I think it broke the ice between us. We have slowly grown from that time to the point that we could put the past behind us and focus on supporting our sons and grandchildren. Most surprisingly (to me), she even affords me the dignity of the correct name and pronouns.
|
|
Vanessa Edwards Foster and Sarah in Texas, at the Annise Parker campaign headquarters. |
Monika: Transition sometimes feels like joining a secret “club of lonely hearts,” you lose some old connections before new ones arrive, and the membership roster is pretty sparse. Did you feel that kind of bittersweet loneliness after your transition, and how did you survive, or maybe even enjoy, a little of that exclusive club life?
Sarah: Oh yeah, that certainly describes my experience. I might even have an official club tee shirt somewhere. I lost some friends outright, and others slowly distanced themselves. In the end, hardly anyone was left who knew me in my former life. I’m not sure there was much to enjoy about that. Fortunately, I had already made a lot of trans friends, and they became my chosen family. Once I remember visiting Vanessa in Houston, and she dragged me along to serve Thanksgiving dinner with her to the homeless. I remember that day fondly.
Monika: Before you were an activist, you were a woman navigating your own transition. How did transitioning in that era shape the way you understood risk, visibility, and survival?
Sarah: That’s a good question, but I’m not sure how to answer it. I think the same principles apply today as applied back then.
As a student of animal behavior, I knew that much depended on how one carries herself. By projecting strength and confidence, even if you’re silently shaking inside, you reduce your vulnerability and risk. I once heard a queen say, “It’s all attitude, honey.” So by being out and visible, I was not hiding. By holding my head up and smiling, I was not projecting weakness. And by going on the offense to demand my rights as a human being, I was not on the defense.
Monika: Has that relationship with visibility changed for you over time?
Sarah: Somewhat. As my life situation and society have changed, my approach to outness and visibility have had to change accordingly. I now live my life, to the extent possible, simply as an old lady. I see no need to explain myself further to most people.
However, if the subject does come up, I freely explain that I’m trans. And I often make a point of it whenever some bit of anti‑trans politics comes up. So I don’t wear a neon sign, but I remain softly visible.
Monika: Do you remember the first time you met a transgender woman in person? What was that experience like, and how did it make you feel?
Sarah: The first time I met another trans woman was at my local support group meeting. I’ll admit it was a scary step for me. After a few minutes of collecting my cool, I could see I was among fellow travelers, and I began making friends.
Monika: I’ve always been fascinated by how trans women were able to find one another, build community, and share knowledge, especially when so few people felt safe enough to be openly out. Before the Internet and social media, what did those early connections look like?
Sarah: I honestly didn’t have any connection prior to my joining the Internet in 1995. Prior to that, I had read some library books and learned of crossdressing organizations, but I was a long way from being ready to seek out these organizations. My entry into the online world was with Compuserve, an early dial-up information service - sort of a primitive Internet with in-network interest groups, chat capabilities, and so forth. It was there that I was able to discuss trans issues with real trans people throughout the nation. That became my support system at a very fragile time in my life. It was not long before I found people who were local to me. I believe I met Cathy there. And it was there that we both learned of a local support group, which we joined.
|
| With Monica Roberts and Daniell McCleney. |
Monika: When you came out, did your mother embrace you as her daughter?
Sarah: Oh my! Well, I didn’t come out to my mom. I was outed to her by my ex in the most ugly and hateful possible way.
Monika: That must have been incredibly difficult.
Sarah: It was devastating. I gathered my kids and my mom, and we all stayed in a motel that night. My mom told me she didn’t understand this thing about me, but she loved me. My kids were confused and traumatized, but they didn’t understand what was going on.
My mom had been visiting from out of state, and she went back home in a rather grief-stricken state. After the better part of a year, she had lung cancer and soon died. I cared for her during her last couple of months of life.
Monika: Did you get a chance to talk with her about being trans before she passed?
Sarah: I did work up the courage to talk with her about my being trans. At the time, I was not transitioned, but I explained to her that deep inside, there is an aspect to me that very few people know. I told her that her name is Sarah, and I showed her a picture. She said that wasn’t as bad as she had imagined, but that “no real woman wears black stockings!” I thought that was funny, because black stockings were in fashion, and she even wore them herself.
Monika: So she understood, in her own way?
Sarah: She understood what she needed to understand. Mostly I wanted her to know that I was the same person either way. She did finally tell me why she was so grief-stricken. She said it didn’t bother her that I was trans. She said I was a fine person, no matter which gender I am. But she felt I would be treated cruelly by society. I assured her that wouldn’t be the case, and I told her all about our fight for civil rights.
She was proud in that moment, because she sort of raised me to be an activist. One of my earliest memories was at my mom’s side at age 4, when she was making her rounds as one of the activists/volunteers in LBJ’s Great Society programs. And in the late 60’s and 70’s, she was a Gloria Steinem feminist.
Monika: That’s incredible, so activism really runs in the family.
Sarah: Yeah. She was a scrapper, and she didn’t like to see injustice go unanswered. Her mom was sort of an activist too. She was a school teacher and taught mostly Mexican immigrant children when there was intense anti-immigrant sentiment. I’m very proud of my activist heritage.
Anyway, my mom and I didn’t say much more about my being trans, but I think she came to a relative peace about it. My father never knew, because he died almost two decades earlier. I don’t know how supportive either of them would be after my transition, but I suspect they would have continued to love me and stand by me.
Monika: Do you feel any connection to your mother in the way you look, carry yourself, or even in your style and mannerisms?
Sarah: Oh, yes. I’ve always been my mother’s child. She always wore her emotions on her sleeve, as I do. She was somewhat of a pedant, as am I. She was rather verbose, which is one of my big weaknesses. And she was definitely an idealist - as was her mom, as am I, as are both of her grandchildren. Physically, though, I think I bear more resemblance to my father.
END OF PART 2
All the photos: courtesy of Sarah Fox.
© 2025 - Monika Kowalska
No comments:
Post a Comment