Interview with Jennifer Diane Reitz

 

Jennifer Diane Reitz moves through culture like a quiet constant, sometimes visible, sometimes hidden, always shaping the space around her. Born in Oregon at the end of 1959 and raised in a childhood of perpetual motion, she learned early how to live between places, between definitions, between what is permitted and what is necessary. Science, fiction, music, and imagined worlds became not escapes but lifelines, ways of giving structure to a reality that rarely offered her safety or recognition. Her creative work, from the early days of independent game design to the formative chaos of the early internet, reflects this instinct to build worlds when none exist. With Happy Puppy, she helped define how games were discovered and shared online, and with Boppin’, she insisted that games could be strange, emotional, uncomfortable, and unapologetically adult. Her later webcomics, especially Unicorn Jelly, continue this refusal of simplicity, unfolding as living systems of myth, logic, and transformation that demand patience and curiosity rather than passive consumption.

 

Alongside her work in games and webcomics, including the long-running Unicorn Jelly and other formally inventive projects, Reitz has consistently explored themes of identity, perception, and transformation. As a trans woman who transitioned in the early 1980s under hostile social conditions, her personal history is marked by resilience, conflict, and moments of profound crisis, but also by enduring partnerships and chosen family. She later founded the website Transsexuality as an attempt to systematize and explain trans experience at a time when accessible information was scarce, a project that remains debated and contested. Taken together, Jennifer Diane Reitz’s career forms a singular narrative at the intersection of early internet culture, independent game development, and lived transgender history, making her a compelling and sometimes challenging voice to engage with in conversation.

Interview with Therese Wonnacott

Therese Wonnacott, known to many as Aunty Anita, is a Hawaiian pioneer, a former beauty pageant promoter, and a tireless activist for trans women of color. Her story is one of resilience, transformation, and deep cultural pride, a life woven with both hardship and triumph. Born in Wailuku, Hawaii, Therese’s early years were marked by instability and pain within a troubled family, yet she found solace and unconditional love in the care of her grandmother. That bond helped her develop the strength she would need to navigate the challenges of growing up in an environment where acceptance was often denied. From an early age, she carried within her a sense of Hawaiian identity and patriotism, rooted in the knowledge of her people’s history and the injustice of the stolen Hawaiian kingdom. Her saying, “Hawaiian by blood, American by force,” reflects her unbreakable pride in her heritage and the struggles of her community. In her youth, she began experimenting with drag performances, where she found both self-expression and a sense of belonging. Those first steps onto the stage eventually led her to the legendary House of Lee Sei, a chosen family that welcomed her when she needed it most.