Interview with Jasmine Eastall

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Jasmine Sapphire Eastall, an inspirational lady from New Zealand, transgender/transsexual activist, and advocate. Hello Jasmine!

Jasmine: Hello Monika!

Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself?

Jasmine: Currently I am living in a lovely valley called Wainuiomata, near Wellington with my partner and newly adopted kitten Desire. In 2004 I traveled through Europe so I saw other transgender communities. I felt I needed to get away to find myself. It was the only way that I was able to comfortably come out as a trans woman.

I was living as a gay male at the time, but I knew inside it wasn't what I really was. There was something deeper than that. It wasn’t till my trip to Spain when it really clicked that I was trans and struggled a lot to accept myself. I met a lovely transwoman from Portugal in Barcelona who engaged in a huge conversation with me, that is when I first learned of hormones.

Interview with Alexandra Billings

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Alexandra Billings, a fascinating American actress, teacher, singer, and the first trans woman to have played a transgender character on television. She was born in Schaumburg, Illinois. Alexandra is also known for transgender characters in ER, Eli Stone, How to Get Away with Murder, Grey's Anatomy, and The Conners.I must say I am thrilled that I can interview such an iconic person. Hello Alexandra!

Alexandra: Well hi there, Monika. I’m glad we can chat like this. I love this cyber-age. You can do anything virtually. Well…almost anything.

No…wait. Literally anything.

Monika: You come from an artistic family. Is it the reason why you became an artist and your whole professional life focuses on beauty pageants, theaters, movies, and singing? 

Alexandra: Strangely I come from both an artistic and academic family. My Dad was the musical director at Civic Light Opera House in LA for many years, and my mother was a teacher, as was her mother and her mother before her. My Dad also taught as well as flew in the air force and retired as a Lt Colonel. So, I’m half bohemian, half professor. I think that’s why I’ve always had this strange sense of adventure mixed with a need to settle down and nest. I’m like a frustrated Carol Brady… on a dash of crack.

Interview with Sherilyn Connelly

Monika: Today’s interview will be with Sherilyn Connelly, an American transgender writer from San Francisco, author of "Malediction and Pee Play”, featured in Topside Press‘s “The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard”. She writes about movies and television for Medialoper and the popular Gawker Media blog io9 and is the head film critic for SF Weekly. Hello Sherilyn!

Sherilyn: Hi!

Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself?

Sherilyn: I'm a San Francisco-based writer. Most of my personal writing has been memoir, but over the past few years, I've been working professionally as a film critic and journalist for the Village Voice and SF Weekly.

Monika: How did you start writing?

Sherilyn: I'd always wanted to be a writer from a young age. Two things I wanted to be, actually, were a writer and a girl. At the time, the chances of either happening -- let alone both -- seemed impossibly remote.

Interview with Adèle Anderson

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Adèle Anderson, an inspirational British songwriter, actress, and member of the acclaimed British cabaret group Fascinating Aïda. She is a patron and humanist celebrant of Humanists UK (formerly known as the British Humanist Association), specializing in non-religious weddings. Hello Adèle!

Adèle: Hello, Monika. What would you like to know?

Monika: Last year Fascinating Aïda could boast the 30th anniversary of its creation. You joined the group, a year later, in 1984. So you have been singing with Dillie Keane for almost 30 years. (Liza Pulman joined the group in 2004.) How have you managed to stay together for so many years?

Adèle: First of all, I hugely admire Dillie and her extraordinary talent. We discovered that we just “clicked” as a writing partnership. She has made me a much better songwriter than I would ever have been on my own.

Secondly, it is extremely satisfying to perform a show that one has written and to enjoy the reactions of the various audiences up and down the country and, sometimes, abroad. Dillie and I have learned to be upfront about any disagreements and not to be offended if one of us doesn’t like a lyric that the other one has written, or thinks it isn’t good enough.

Interview with Tamara Adrián

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Tamara Adrián, a prominent LGBT activist and law professor from Venezuela. She is also an international activist, being the current Trans Secretary of ILGA, the Chair of IDAHO-T, and a member of the BOD of WPATH, GATE, and GLISA. Hello Tamara!

Tamara: Hello, Monika. It is a pleasure to be with you today, and respond to your questions. I think young LGBT are needed of positive examples of life, so they may create and fulfill a plan of life that fully responds to their wishes and desires, and promote their abilities and dreams without discrimination.

Monika: Could you say a few words about your career so far?

Tamara: Well, I am a lawyer that graduated with honors in Venezuela; I have a Doctorate in Law with honors at Paris University, and I am a law professor, as well as a practitioner lawyer.
Within this context, I’ve been able to potentiate my activism, by means of both writing and action. Some people are only academics, the others are only activists. I think that when you are able to combine both, you may propose ideas from the academic point of view, and may defend them in the field with your activism.

Interview with Jula Böge

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Jula Böge, a German transgender activist and writer, the author of “Ich bin (k)ein Mann: Als Transgender glücklich leben” (2009). Hello Jula!

Jula: Hello Monika, I’m very impressed that you know my book because it is only accessible in the German language. My site julaonline.de is better known in Germany. It has more than 100,000 readers per year.

Monika: Could you say a few words about your career so far?

Jula: I never realized that I have a career. Nearly ten years ago I began to share my experiences and insights as a transgender person by writing articles and publishing them on my website. The book in 2009 was an important next step. Since then I have been not only a writer but also a speaker on CSD events in Germany and other European countries.