Interview with Bobbie Dodds Glass

 

Teaching is basically a family business for Dr. Bobbie Dodds Glass, so much so that if you traced her family tree, it might look more like a school staff directory. Her four grown children are all teachers, their spouses are all teachers, and somehow, this doesn’t even begin to capture her influence on students, colleagues, and the broader education community. To date there are nearly 9,000 teachers, principals, counselors and central office administrators spread across the world who have spent a minimum of 8 weeks training with Dr. Glass on their way to becoming licensed and certified to work with the most extreme and marginalized students in their school districts. Bobbie’s journey in Special Education started back in 1977, right when P.L. 94-142, what we now know as IDEA, was changing the landscape for students with disabilities nationwide.

 

Bobbie has taught every grade level from K-12 and every level of higher education from undergrad to doctoral students. She has worked with students who are blind or visually impaired, pioneered the use of assistive technology with funding and support from Apple, IBM, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education, and even led a state agency ensuring access to education, healthcare, and more for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. On top of that, she’s a licensed K-12 teacher, a full-time Special Resource Teacher, an advisor for LGBTQ+ programs in schools and medical curriculum, and a devoted mom and grandmother of 10. When she’s not shaping young minds, Bobbie is exploring Kentucky’s back roads, camping, off-roading, or navigating the great outdoors in her RV. She’s an inspiration for educators, families, and adventurers alike.

Interview with Ella Marques

It has been three years since I last spoke with Ella Marques, a Portuguese-American writer living in Boca Raton, Florida, and in that time her creative world has continued to expand with remarkable energy. Known for her deeply personal biographical book I Was Born a Boy from Venus. It’s Time to Be Yourself, Ella has since taken readers further along her journey with Coming Home to Venus, a powerful reflection on transition, change, and becoming whole, as well as Eva’s World, a vibrant work of fiction that blends lived experience with imagination. Beyond writing, Ella has become a visible and generous presence in the transgender community through Trans-Gurus, a platform she co-founded to support and connect trans people across the globe. Her story is one of courage, introspection, creativity, and an unwavering belief that transgender women are, quite simply, women who live, love, work, and dream like anyone else.

 

In Coming Home to Venus, Ella traces the path from dysphoria to gender reassignment surgery, exploring not only the medical and practical aspects of transition but also its emotional, psychological, and social dimensions. The book stands as both a personal testimony and a roadmap, speaking directly to transgender readers while inviting cisgender audiences to better understand the depth and complexity of a trans woman’s experience. Alongside this deeply reflective work, Ella embraced fiction with Eva’s World, a novel that blends travel, friendship, love, and identity, drawing from real places, real emotions, and lived experiences, while allowing imagination to take the lead. Now in her mid-sixties, Ella speaks with the confidence of experience and the curiosity of someone still deeply engaged with the world. Her journey is marked not by a single moment of transition, but by a lifelong commitment to authenticity, creativity, and connection. In this interview, we return to her story not only to reflect on how far she has come, but also to explore how living fully as oneself can unlock new beginnings at any stage of life.

Interview with Rajée Rajindra Narinesingh

Rajee Narinesingh’s story is one of beauty pursued with courage, and survival earned at a high cost. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Philadelphia, she came of age carrying a rich, layered heritage and a deep pull toward performance, expression, and becoming fully herself. From her early years in the arts to her studies at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, Rajee moved through the world with both vulnerability and determination, always aware that her life would require imagination as much as endurance. Coming out as a transgender woman in the late 1990s, Rajee’s transition unfolded in a time when information, safety, and medical access were often luxuries rather than rights. In her search to align her body with her identity, she became one of many trans women harmed by underground practices that thrived in the absence of affordable, legitimate care.

 

What followed was not only physical suffering, but isolation, shame, and years spent largely out of public view, carrying pain in silence while her body bore the consequences of betrayal and neglect. Yet Rajee did not disappear. She endured. With the help of compassionate medical professionals and the quiet insistence of friendship, she began the long, uncertain process of healing, not just physically, but emotionally. Alongside this journey, she continued to create. As an actress and singer, she claimed space for herself in film and music, refusing to be defined solely by trauma. Her role in Bella Maddo offered a glimpse of her depth and wit, a reminder that she was, and remains, a storyteller in her own right. Before her name became widely known, Rajee was already living a truth many preferred not to see, a truth about the costs trans women pay when society looks away. Her life, even before the spotlight found her, speaks to resilience without romance, survival without spectacle, and a fierce insistence on dignity.