Interview with Lannie Rose

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Elaine Rhodes, a.k.a., Lannie Rose, an American computer engineer, and writer, a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and Santa Clara University. In her day, she was a regular contributor to the e-zine Transgender Forum, a member of the Triangle Speaker Bureau, the author of “How To Change Your Sex: A Lighthearted Look at the Hardest Thing You'll Ever Do” (2004), “LANNIE! My Journey from Man to Woman” (2007), and “Everything Nice: A Late-Onset Coming-of-Age Story” (2009). Hello Lannie!

 Lannie: Hi Monika! Your website is an impressive body of work, as well as being nicely designed, and I say this as one web designer to another. I am happy to become part of it! 

Monika: Before we get started, could you please explain your name? Are you Elaine, or Lannie, or what?

Lannie: Yeah, uh, well, it’s like this: Early in the Internet days, in the late 1990s, there was a lot of fear about people online tracking you down and murdering you in your sleep, so nobody used their real names. Nobody actually got murdered in their sleep, by the way. 

Anyway, I became Lannie Rose at that time, and it stuck. When it came time to legally change my name, I went from Edward Rhodes to Elaine Rhodes, keeping the same initials, you know?

Interview with Kelly Metzgar

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Kelly Metzgar, an inspirational transgender rights activist from Saranac Lake, New York, USA, a co-founder of Adirondack North Country Gender Alliance, a community-based LGBTQ organization providing services to the Adirondack North Country of Upstate New York. Hello Kelly! 

Kelly: Hi Monika, thank you so much for reaching out to me for this wonderful opportunity for a nice international chat!
Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself?
Kelly: I am a transgender woman living in Saranac Lake in the Adirondack North Country of upstate New York.
I am passionate about my advocacy and educational work having been involved in Transgender, Gender Non-Conforming/Non-Binary as well as Lesbian, Gay, Bi/Pansexual training workshops for several years speaking in regional colleges and universities, as well as to various religious, business, and civic organizations. I present customized, targeted workshops and training sessions at Transgender and LGBTQ conferences in both my regional area, New York State, and national levels.

Interview with Cathy Serino

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Cathy Serino, a disabled transgender veteran, and activist from Missouri, USA. Hello Cathy!

Cathy: Hello Monika. It’s a pleasure to speak with you.

Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself? I have read that you have three lovely three granddaughters!

Cathy: Yes. I have five children and actually, at this point, I have 4 grandchildren. 3 girls and 1 boy with the newest arrival being in August 2017. My grandchildren are my special angels and everything I do is to hopefully allow them to grow up in a society that is about love and acceptance and not the hate and discrimination that has been present throughout my life.

Interview with Shauna Marie O'Toole

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Shauna Marie O'Toole, an American transgender rights activist, presently living in Geneva, New York. In her past, she has been a technician, engineer, scientist, and educator, and the author of You Can't Shave In a Minimart Bathroom (2009). She volunteers with the Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley and is the Director of the We Exist Coalition of the Finger Lakes. She has also recently announced that she is running for the 54th New York State Senate on the Democratic Ticket. Hello Shauna!

Shauna: Hi, Monika! Thank you for the invitation to talk with you.

Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself?

Shauna: What I can say is that this has been a very full life! I have done everything from (legally) digging holes in cemeteries for a living to helping with a project that few on shuttle Atlantis during STS-34. My students used to ask if there is anything I haven't done. My typical answer is that I wasn't sure...

Interview with Lisa Bunker

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Lisa Bunker, an American writer, known for her debut novel “Felix Yz“ (Viking, 2017), about a boy fused with an alien. Her second novel, “Zenobia July”, about a trans girl getting to live as a girl for the first time in a new school, is due to be published in Winter/Spring 2019, also from Viking. Hello Lisa!

Lisa: Hi Monika! I’m glad to be talking to you today.

Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself?

Lisa: Well, you covered the basic facts of my current life situation in your intro. I’m finally a full-time author after decades of trying to make that my work. Also, I’m in a wonderful relationship and finally getting to find out what it’s like to love and be loved as the person I actually am. Plus, my children are grown and my parents are gone. So, I guess you could say I’m a person whose dreams have finally come true who then finds herself curiously free to look around for the next thing to do.

Interview with Marissa Alexa McCool

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Marissa Alexa McCool, an American LGBT-rights activist and speaker, multiple podcast host (The Inciting Incident Podcast), author, mother, columnist, and stage performer, the author of “Passing Cars: The Internal Monologue of a Neurodivergent Trans Girl” (2017) and four other books. Hello Marissa!

Marissa: Hello Monika, thank you so much for reaching out to me. It’s a pleasure.

Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself? You are a woman of so many talents and interests. Is writing most important for you?

Marissa: I don’t know if I can rank my interests by importance, but perhaps I can by longevity. But let me answer your other questions first: I’m 32. I graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with degrees in English, Cinema and Media Arts, and Anthropology. I live in Saint Paul, Minnesota with my husband, partner, and two children. 

Writing is the interest I’ve been pursuing as long as I can remember. I learned to type when I was four years old, and I can remember using a word processor as a young child to create stories involving people I know. As I grew up, I used that imagination in role-playing stories, and I couldn’t imagine pursuing anything else when it came to university focus. I was able to learn from some amazing professors, including Meta Mazaj, Kathy Van Cleve, and Marion Kant, and I don’t know where I’d be without them.

Interview with Lisa O'Connor

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Lisa O'Connor, an American physician, health care provider, and therapist to the transgender/gender variant community from Stirling, New Jersey, the owner of Healthy Transitions. Hello Lisa!

Lisa: Hiya, Monika! Thanks for having me. Poland is lovely this time of year. It’s only the second time I’ve ever visited.

Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself?

Lisa: Hmm, well, the usual opening line is that I was born and raised in New York City. Thankfully, your readers will not have to suffer through my Metropolitan New York English accent. By the way, you are very kind for not mocking me.

Monika: The name of your company highlights the word “healthy? What does a healthy transition espouse?

Lisa: This is one of those €64,000 questions. We could talk for hours on this topic. It is huge. As a matter of fact, it is one of my guiding principles for Healthy Transitions, LLC: healthy and happy.

Interview with Rachel Eliason

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Rachel Eliason, a fiction and nonfiction writer, speaker, the author of the biographical book titled “The Agony, The Ecstasy and The Buddha: One Woman's Month in Thailand having a Sex Change” (2017). Hello Rachel!

Rachel: Hello, thanks for having me here.

Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself? When did you decide that writing will be your vocation?

Rachel: I have wanted to be a writer as long as I wanted to transition. For years they were my two secret “W’s” wanting to be a woman and to be a writer.

Growing up in the U.S. Midwest in the 1970s and ’80s, I never heard anyone say the word transgender, and as far as I knew at the time, changing sex was something that only happened in science fiction. So I dismissed those feelings and tried to make the best of my life in the wrong gender.

Interview with Claire-Renee Kohner

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Claire-Renee Kohner, an American transgender journalist, activist, blogger, transgender journalist, activist, and mom of 3 boys. She reports on the positive aspects of the transgender community and reports on everyday issues as well as trans and queer actresses, directors, musicians, and the entertainment industry. Hello Claire-Renee!

Claire-Renee: Hi Monika! Thank you so much for taking some time out of your day to interview me, I really appreciate what you do.
Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself?
Claire-Renee: As you mentioned, I’m a transgender journalist, activist, and mother of three boys; I have over 100 published articles on venues like the Advocate, Bustle, PlanetTransgender, GayEssentials, Original Plumbing, Claire Channel and I’ve appeared on HuffPo Live, The Queer Radio Network, and MyTalk107.1 to discuss dating while transgender and current transgender issues.

Interview with Emily Crose

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Emily Crose, an American IT specialist, and network threat hunter. She publishes her essays to such portals as motherboard.vice.com, theestablishment.com, and upworthy.com. Hello Emily!
Emily: Hello Monika!
Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself?
Emily: Sure! I transitioned medically and socially back in early 2016 while I was working for the US Army as a civilian. I had taken that job specifically because I believed that it would be a good environment for me to do so, and for the most part I was right.
I’ve been out to my family, including my wife (who has been putting up with me in marriage for over 8 years now) since 2014 after a false start in 2010. We have two lovely kids together and have been continuously evolving as a couple since we were married.

Interview with Ryka Aoki

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Ryka Aoki, a Japanese American award-winning author, performer, and professor of English at Santa Monica College, known for her book "Seasonal Velocities" (2012), novel "He Mele a Hilo" (2014) and set of poems "Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul" (2015). Hello Ryka!

Ryka: Hello Monika!
Monika: It has been already 2 years since you published your last book. Can we expect any new publication soon?
Ryka: I’ve had some stories and poems published, most recently in Meanwhile, Elsewhere from Topside Press. But my main work is a new novel, currently untitled, which is set in the San Gabriel Valley, in the Greater Los Angeles area. It centers around a traumatized transgender runaway, and a violin teacher bargaining with the Devil to win back her soul. On their journey, they also meet a family of Vietnamese space aliens escaping interstellar war and trying to run a donut shop. I am trying to convey a world of flux, adaptation, sweetness, and loss.

Interview with Robin Diane Goldstein

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Robin Diane Goldstein, an American transgender rights activist, former talk-radio host and stand up comedian, blogger, former Senior Engineering Manager, former Principal Counsel, and currently Senior Manager of Health Special Projects at Apple Inc. in Cupertino, California. Hello Robin! 

Robin: Hi Monika. Greetings from the heart of the Silicon Valley.

Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself?

Robin: When I started as a talk radio host I described myself as a “Straight, White, Buddhist, Vegetarian, Lesbian Fraternity Boy trapped in the body of a Recovering Transexual Woman Patent Attorney with a Bizarre Sense of Humor and a Master’s Degree in City Planning.” Add in the fact that I make a great New York Style Cheesecake, and I think you’ve got me pretty much figured out.

Interview with Denise Chanterelle DuBois

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Denise Chanterelle DuBois, an American actress, environmentalist, and a businesswoman from Portland, Oregon, the author of the biographical memoir book titled “Self-Made Woman” (2017). Hello Denise! 

Denise: Hi Monika and thank you so much for interviewing me today! I really appreciate it.

Monika: You present yourself as a “fortune's favorite daughter”. Could you say a few words about yourself?

Denise: In my memoir, I write about so many close calls I had with death, and yet survived basically unharmed. I had huge drug & alcohol problems in “my other life” as I like to call it, and rightfully should either be dead from overdosing, or in a nursing home with no brain left, yet here I am still standing and grateful for that. Indeed, I am “fortune’s favorite daughter.”

Interview with Fran Fried

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Fran Fried, an American editor, writer, blogger, DJ, music fiend, friend, daughter and, accidental civil rights activist from Prospect, Connecticut. Hello Fran!

Fran: Hi, Monika! Thanks for finding me and thanks for the interview. I’m honored and flattered to be in some pretty good company here! 

Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself?

Fran: Well, I’m a writer, an editor, a DJ, a daughter, a sister, a good friend – and, oh, yeah, by the way, I’m trans. I’m out and about in the everyday world, and if you don’t know me, chances are you won’t read me. As far as I can tell, with my friends, being trans is just incidental; first and foremost, to them, as well as myself, I’m Fran. The gender dysphoria is just one facet of an interesting life – a big, honking facet, but still, just one nonetheless.

Interview with Jaime Erin Fivecoat

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Jaime Erin Fivecoat, a retired American benefits manager from Taylors, South Carolina. Hello Jaime!

Jaime: Hi Monika, Thank you for the opportunity to tell my story to you. What an honor to be included with such a great group of women.

Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself?

Jaime: I guess one way to describe myself is that I am an optimistic volunteer advocate. I volunteer for four organizations. I’m a Board Member of The Obesity Action Coalition (OAC), which is a patient advocacy organization for the treatment of obesity, Secretary of Upstate Pride SC (UPSC) for the LGBTQ+ community, I facilitate two SMART Recovery meetings for dealing with any form of addiction, and work on projects with Gender Benders a local Trans Support Group.

I feel deeply that we are all equal and I do what I can to fight for the rights of those that are marginalized, discriminated against, or are victims of any form of stigma. I am fortunate to have a loving wife and to be a mom to three dogs. Karen and I have been married for 43 years.

Interview with Aleana Robins

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Aleana Robins, a former skier, grave digger, performance car driver, small business owner, farmer, artist, radio announcer, blogger, parent of 7 children from Riverside, California, and the author of the biographical book titled “The Shadow of Ally” (2016). She lives in Launceston, a city in the north of Tasmania, Australia. Hello Aleana!
Aleana: Hello and thank you for taking the time. I promise you can ask anything but I will not promise you will like my answer (smiles). Though I would love to say that the start of my journey began in California but I have lived all over the western side of the US. I moved to Australia in 2002 to be with my former spouse.
Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself? The number of your talents and jobs is really awesome …
Aleana: I grew up in a middle-income family with a mother who did not know how to care and a father who was lost in his battles with PTSD from Vietnam. I think in some ways my teenage years while dysfunctional was also a place where I gained so many talents. I have enjoyed playing several musical instruments learned to have a love for music and the arts that have only grown in age. I love skiing and the sound of fresh powder under my skies. I am a proud parent of seven children, I know people think wow a breeder, lol. But I would not change their love and the experiences that come with them in my life for all the Tea in China.

Interview with Tuesday Meadows

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Tuesday G Meadows, an American transactivist, blogger, retired grocery store manager from Lexington, Kentucky. Hello Tuesday!

Tuesday: Hello Monika!

Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself?

Tuesday: My name is Tuesday Meadows, I live in Lexington, Kentucky. :)

Monika: I saw your short story in The New York Times series titled “Transgender Today.” Why did you decide to come out to the general public?

Tuesday: The purpose of the series was to tell stories of transgender individuals from varied backgrounds. The first 10 I read were people who had achieved great things such as scientists, doctors, lawyers, actors, and business leaders. I thought, “I wonder where the ordinary people like me are?” So I decided to give them a profile of me because there is no one more ordinary than me.

Interview with Kristen Aaquist

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Kristen Aaquist, an American legal secretary from Reno, Nevada. Hello Kristen!

Kristen: Hello Monika and thank you.

Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself?

Kristen: I’m a mother of two. I have a cat. I enjoy running, beading, watching movies, and playing video games.

Monika: I saw your short story in The New York Times series titled “Transgender Today.” Why did you decide to come out to the general public?

Kristen: As I’ve gotten more comfortable being myself, I have found myself wanting to be more outspoken and try to help educate the public about the trans community, which includes humanizing us to the rest of society. By telling our stories, we can show everyone that we are truly just like everyone else.

Interview with Becca Benz

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Becca Benz, an American model, writer, blogger, adult movie actress, Army veteran, trans advocate, and columnist for Transformation Magazine and her weekly column Through The Benz on Grooby.com, and formally for TransGlobal Magazine. Becca also has her own blog at BeccaBenz.com Hello Becca! You look fantastic!
Becca: Hello Monika, and thank you! I was fortunate to be born with good genes and a fast metabolism! Healthy living has also helped, along with working out at the gym six days a week to keep this old body in decent shape!
Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself?
Becca: People know me mainly for my modeling and writing under the name Becca Benz, but my real name is Rebecca Pell. The past several years have been full of amazing experiences, but I also led an interesting life before I ventured into modeling. I served in the United States Army, worked at a university managing a research center, managed environmental remediation projects for the federal government, worked as a seasonal wildland firefighter during summer breaks while in college, and worked several summers for the National Park Service on a backcountry trail crew.

Interview with Cassidy McGuinn

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Cassidy McGuinn, an Irish-American blogger from Boston, Massachusetts, that rambles on life, love, music, and baseball (not necessarily in that order) on her blog Cassidy's Quest and YouTube vlog. Hello Cassidy!

Cassidy: Hello, Monika! Thank you so much for this invitation. I am beyond flattered! 

Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself?

Cassidy: Let’s see… as you mentioned in your introduction, I’m an Irish-American gal from the Boston area. I’ve also been fortunate enough to live in Seattle and Newport, Rhode Island, two of the most beautiful places in the United States. (For your readers: be sure to try Del’s frozen lemonade if you ever visit Newport. You can thank me later!)

I am indeed a die-hard baseball fan – not just the Red Sox, the team from Boston, but also the Toronto Blue Jays and Seattle Mariners. To be honest, I’ll watch any baseball game. :c)

Hmm… what else? I’ve gotten into running the past few years and absolutely love it. It’s also very peaceful; I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve finished a run and realized I had worked out the solution to some issue I’d been wrestling with!