Interview with Leslie Regier

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Leslie Regier, the author of "Unchaining My Truth: Taking Flight on the Wings of a Dream", published by her business, Violet Angel. Hello Leslie!

Leslie: Hi Monika. It is also my pleasure to meet you and have this opportunity to be interviewed. You have presented a professional series of these interviews, and I am privileged to be among them.

Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself?

Leslie: It's difficult to know where to start. I am a person with so many facets, so many interests, so many passions in life. Some might call me a renaissance woman. I think perhaps at the core I am someone with a strong desire to learn, experience, play, share, and teach throughout my life.

Monika: Why did you decide to write your autobiography?

Leslie: I've always enjoyed writing in one form or another. The desire has varied at different times, but when I went through my gender transition I felt strongly compelled to share my experiences in a way that would openly reach more people. It was not only an outlet for me, but I also felt it would be helpful for others to learn from my experiences and my unusual journey, whether they are transgendered or not.

Interview with Nancy Nangeroni

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview longtime transgender activist Nancy Nangeroni. Nancy founded the Boston chapter of The Transexual Menace, a ‘disorganization’ of transgender activists, in 1995. She co-produced and co-hosted GenderTalk for 11 years and GenderVision for 11 programs. She served as Executive Director of the International Foundation for Gender Education and has been Chair of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition since 2008. An MIT-degreed engineer, she worked in the industry for 20+ years, now focuses on providing leadership and tech empowerment to the broader trans community. Hello Nancy!

Nancy: Hi Monika, thanks for inviting me to join your many amazing interviewees! 

Monika: For many years you have been dealing with transgender advocacy. What has been achieved so far and what are the current challenges for transgender people in the USA?

Nancy: When I began volunteer work for IFGE in 1990, there was little respect shown for people expressing or identifying with the ‘opposite’ gender, and any critique of binary gender thinking was relegated to the radical fringe. Now, we have laws in hundreds of jurisdictions protecting people’s right to freedom of gender identity and expression.
Most people in the USA now accept, if still resisting in some areas, the presence of transgender people in “respectable” society. We’ve forged a credible (some say leading) social movement that continues to grow. And we continue to win respect for people who don’t fit into pre-existing definitions, including definitions of what it is to be “transgender.”

Interview with Guta Silveira

Monika: Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Guta Silveira, an inspirational transgender activist from Brazil, actress, author of two biographical books: "Homens Não Choram" (1994) and "Transexual A História de Uma Vida" (2005). Hello Guta!

Guta: Hello Monika! Hello girls!

Monika: Could you say a few words about yourself?

Guta: My story doesn’t deviate much from what usually happens to other transsexual girls. I was born with the body of a boy and I was raised as one. Despite that, when I was 3 years old I went to the sports club with my mother and we used to go to the girl`s bathroom and that was normal to me, part of my universe.

One day I went to the boys' bathroom and I was stunned by what I saw. Handsome men stirred something in me, but at that age, I didn’t know what it was. I grew up feeling different from my schoolmates, not knowing what my true place was. I loved to use my mother’s makeup on myself when there was nobody watching, and used rags to fake long hair, wrapped myself in bedsheets to make believe they were dresses, it was all very fun and pleasing.

Interview with Fay Presto

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Fay Presto, aka Letitia Winter, a British premier close-up magician, voted The Magic Circle Close-up Magician of the Year 2012, former Tatler 'Party Entertainer of the Year, Gold Star Member of The Inner Magic Circle.

Her first job was as a lab assistant at an atomic energy research company. She had to leave The Magic Circle when she began her transition, regaining the membership in 1991 when The Magic Circle voted to allow women members. Her main interest is close-up magic; she is known for her "bottle through the table" trick, which was ranked as one of the greatest magic tricks of all time by Channel 4's 50 Greatest Magic Tricks. Hello Fay!

Fay: Hello Monika!

Monika: According to Wikipedia, magic is a performing art that entertains audiences by staging tricks or creating illusions of seemingly impossible or supernatural feats using natural means. Why do people need magic?

Fay: Magic, my kind of magic, is part of the entertainment industry. People have a fundamental need to be entertained, after air, water, food, and shelter, comes entertainment; be it folk tales, shamanic dancing, or cave paintings that flicker in the firelight.

We go out, kill the mammoth, bring it home, skin it and cook it and then gather in the cave behind the fire and tell tales to help us forget the sabre-toothed tiger on the other side of the flames.

Interview with Melissa Sklarz

Monika: Today it is my pleasure and honor to interview Melissa Sklarz with whom I would like to discuss the role of transgender women in US politics, culture, and society. Melissa is a transgender advocate and activist, delegate to the Democratic National Convention in New York, presiding over Stonewall Democratic Club. Hello Melissa! 

Melissa: Hi Monika!!! Thanks for doing this and for reaching out to New York City!! 

Monika: I am tempted to ask about your family roots. Your family surname sounds Polish …

Melissa: The family surname Sklarz means glassworker or window cleaner, depending on which part of Poland or the Czech Republic you are from. My estimate is my family left Poland in the late 18th Century and then went to Munich for 3 generations. My family arrived in New York City in the late 1850s.

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

Melissa: I transitioned in the early 1990s and then became a peer counselor at the Gender Identity Project in the mid-90s. People asked about resources for trans people and I discovered there were none. I started getting involved with the government and the political system at that point, and have continued on from there.

Interview with Johanna Kamermans

Monika: Today is my pleasure and honor to interview Johanna Kamermans (born 1938), a writer, translator, and former striptease dancer from the Netherlands. For nearly 15 years, she worked in cabarets in Germany, Belgium, and Luxembourg as a striptease dancer named Gina de Senfal (for a short time as Gigi Deloran), the author of the autobiographical novel titled "Schlauchgelüste" (2012) and other 10 books of all kinds. Hello Johanna!

Johanna: Hello dear Monika! Many thanks for your invitation and I am very glad that you give me the possibility to say something about my transgender life, especially in the former times. I always say: “Future and past belong together, especially for us transgender people, because also we – like other people too - become elder and elder (help !)…”
Monika: You come from a very cosmopolitan family with parental roots in Germany (mother), the Netherlands (father), and Flanders (paternal ancestors)...
Johanna: Yes, in 1933 my beautiful mother came from Gelsenkirchen-Buer (Ruhr-Region) to Vlissingen (a seaside resort on the Dutch North Sea coast). She worked there in the famous “Grand Hotel Britannia” and there she met my father. I wrote 4 genealogical books about both of them and my worldwide family.