Ocean Township resident Graeme Davis describes his childhood in Harlem, the NYC gay scene of the 1970s, and coming out as a trans man later in life.
““We’re all human, whatever difference you have, you know, okay we understand it, we respect it, but we’re all human. And, just want to live a happy life, you know. So no matter what coat you have on, African American, Latino, Asian, you know, whatever the outside coat, in here, in your heart, it’s just enough that we just want to be okay with each other…””
Annotations
Learn More : “‘No Promo Homo’ Laws.” Policy, Advocacy, & Research, GLSEN, accessed 2020.
Learn More [2] : “A Call to Action: LGBTQ Youth Need Inclusive Sex Education.” Resources, Human Rights Campaign, 2015.
Learn More [3] : Wong, Brittany. “What An LGBTQ-Inclusive Sex Education Would Have Taught You.” Life: Wellness, The Huffington Post, April 3, 2019.
Learn More : Dotinga, Randy. “LGBT Patients Seek Open Arms in Long-Term Care.” Caring for the Ages 21, no. 7 (2020): 1, 10-11.
Learn More [2] : “LGBTQ Aging: The Case for Inclusive Long-Term Care Communities.” Health Care, SAGE: Advocacy & Services for LGBT Elders, Feb. 2020.
Learn More [3] : “FAQ for Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming Older Adults.” Know Your Rights, Lambda Legal, accessed 2020.
TRANSCRIPT
Interview conducted by Chrissy Briskin and John P. Keller
New Brunswick , NJ
March 11, 2020
Transcription by Chrissy Briskin
Annotations by Samantha Resnick
Transcriber note: There are two interviewers in this transcript. Both are bold. John is bold and italicized.
00:00
Great this is Chrissy Briskin with coLAB Arts, it is March 11 at 5:05, 2020, March 11, 2020 and we are here today with…
Graeme Davis
Great, and Graeme can you tell us...spell your name for us….
Yes, because people think it is Graham and it is not Gray-ham. It is G-R-A-E-M-E.
And what town do you live in?
I currently live in Ocean Township, so that’s kind of code for Asbury Park. (laughter)
Great, so I guess we’ll start kind of at the beginning, and I’m curious if there are any interesting stories from the day you were born, interesting family stories from when you were born.
Wow. (laughter) I gotta go back, rewind. Interesting stories. There’s always interesting stories, but, however, I will say, when I was born, it was a rainy day as I understand, from the story from my parents, it was a rainy day and they were bringing me home from the hospital. I grew up in New York City, Harlem specifically, I was born in Harlem Hospital, I think a lot of my siblings were. That was the closest hospital and I’m the fifth child of five. So, I’m the last one and I think I was the most radical one of all of them. (laughter) There’s a gap between me and my siblings of five years. I am the fifth child, the last one of five children.
Ok..
Yeah.
Ok, so can you tell me what it was like growing up in Harlem with five siblings?
Well, we initially lived in a two bedroom apartment, we were in Harlem in an area, in one of the first public housing complexes that was developed. So we lived on the tail end of Manhattan right across from the Bronx, in fact from my window we could see Yankee Stadium. Ok? And at that time, Yankee Stadium, and you can go back in the records, Yankee Stadium had a clock on the front of it and that’s how we told time in which we were gonna go to school. So, two bedrooms, you had five kids, four girls, one boy, so we had to share the one bedroom while my parents had the other bedroom and um, it was crowded, you know, but we managed. We had fun times, we did a lot of family things. My father was a tailor so he worked in the garment industry and he was the sole breadwinner so my mother stayed at home and she took care of us. Um, she did a lot of babysitting when we were kids, neighborhood babysitter, she was the person that the families would go to to babysit their kids, so anytime there was anything going on, they would go to my mom. Um, we lived in a court area where there was a tennis court, so we learned to play tennis very early on. I love tennis, I can’t play now because of a back injury, but we learned to play very young. So tennis, bicycle riding, it was just, a very good community there at the time because we were all neighbors, and it takes a village to raise kids, right? And that’s what it was. If anybody was doing anything out of line kids wise, another adult can say, “Hey, what are you doing? That’s wrong.” And you could be corrected, and it was okay. Unlike today. So, that’s the unfortunate part.
Um, were there, when you guys were kids, you and your siblings, were there special things that you and your family would do to spend time together and then were those things done in the city or were there places you went outside of the city to spend time together?
Well, when I was younger um, not so much that we did things together, well that’s not true. Let me back up. My father also worked as a barber. He liked to work with his hands. So he would on the weekends do his barber cutting at a shop up in the Bronx and on Saturday nights he would come home and he would bring shrimp (laughter) this was our family thing, you know, you bring shrimp home, my mother would cook it and we would have a little shrimp fry, not necessarily a fish fry, but a shrimp fry. And it was good, we would get to sit around and share stories and that was good, you know? Unfortunately I can’t eat shrimp now, but (laughter) but it was a good time, you know? Um, as we began to grow up, we did, I had a large extended family and we would do trips in the summer. I had an aunt who liked to do, back in the day it was not just the Circle Line that existed, but there was a boat that was called The Dayliner and The Dayliner would be a nine hour trip all the way up to Poughkeepsie. And you would spend the whole day on the boat with lunch and everything and my aunt would take us on that trip and we would spend the day. It was like one of our things that we did in the summer. And it was great, you know, sitting on the boat, just hanging out, eating, running around the boat, you know? It was fun. So, that’s some of the stuff that we did as kids.
6:06
Around what year was that, when you were doing those trips?
Oh my God, you’re talking about late sixties, yeah, late sixties, early seventies, it was nice. It was fun.
Ok, so I guess we can move into school…
Ok.
So now did you live in Harlem your whole childhood?
My whole childhood I lived in Harlem. I went to the local schools. There was a school called P.S. 90 and we were able to walk to that school, which was only a few blocks away. That place, that building is now a co-op. All the things have changed in Harlem (laughter) so that’s a co-op. As I went into junior high school which is grade six through eight. I went to another school which was a little further down, Junior High School 136, Harriet Beecher Stowe, which is a famous black...I forgot what she did, she was a black writer I think. Um, so six through eight junior high school, and four girls, one boy, so in Harlem you had 136 which was an all girls school and you had Theodore Roosevelt which was an all boys school and that’s where my brother went. That’s how they split it up. Junior high school was fun, (laughter) lot of good times. We had some very nice teachers there, they cared about you. Even in elementary school, the teachers cared, they worked in pretty tough conditions, but they did well. And if I could rewind a little bit, in elementary school, they had truant officers, they don’t have anything like that now. So if you cut out of school, you had a truant officer who would grab you and take you back to school, they would report you to your parents, that you tried to cut out of school. So there were some controls there that kind of kept kids in line you know?
Mm-hm.
They phased that out, I think as I kind of got into junior high school, they phased that out. So now I think you’re talking about middle seventies, um, I was very active in junior high school. Lot of sports, so volleyball, swimming, basketball was number one. Swim team, I just did a lot of sports and then of course tennis, because tennis was right in my backyard. Or I should say my front yard at the time. We moved from the location where we were, we were getting older, my parents wanted to have a bedroom for my brother because he was becoming a young man now. (laughter) And he didn’t need to be in a room shared by four females ok? So we moved to...they built another extension building so um, that area of Harlem there was Seventh Avenue which is now called Frederick-no Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard, Eighth Avenue diag-a few blocks over is Eighth Avenue and that is now called Frederick Douglass Boulevard, so we moved to that building which was a high rise building, fifteen floors and from eighth grade until I finally left, my parents lived there. Um, so it was good, we had some exciting things going on in junior high school (laughter).
9:45
Well, I wanted to ask about, the first thing I want to ask about is your academics. As you were coming out of grammar school into junior high, were you a good student, was there a subject that you were particularly interested in?
I was a good student. I liked Social Studies, Science, I liked Sciences. Generally good, there was a period where I had a little trouble and that was in ninth grade. I started to be a little rebel (laughter).
It happens, it’s that age, it’s that age.
Ok? So, I was a little rebel, you know, me and my friends, we were hanging out, cutting classes, doing marijuana, drinking, I was like, Ok, whatever, I was just barely passing my courses. By the time I got into tenth grade it was really serious (laughter) so I was like, ok I better start getting it together or else you’re not going to graduate. But yeah, um, so generally ok…
And that changing, that kind of flip was that self motivated and directed or was that coming from maybe a parent saying…
A little of both...a little of both. Um my parents were like, “What do you think you’re doing? You better get your act together or else you’re not going to get out of school,” you know and it was like, “Ok, let me start getting myself together.” So it was a big switch from Ds, because I went all the way down to Ds, I started getting As and Bs and by the time I got into my senior year I was fine. Ready to graduate. But I’ll back up again a little bit. From junior high school through before I got into high school um, we had to think about what careers we wanted and I really wanted to go into lab technology. New York City, they used to have vocational schools, they don’t have those anymore and that’s really unfortunate because kids are not learning any skills. Um, so I wanted to go into lab technology and there was a school in the Bronx called Grace Dodge, I don’t think it exists anymore and there was primarily, they had a course in lab technology and all the sciences, but the year that I was about to graduate which was ‘72 from junior high school, um, they didn’t want the senior class to go up there. There was some kind of zoning issue. That’s what they told us, which was really crazy (laughter) because the following year, that class was able to go up there. I was really distraught, I was so upset because that was my plan, you know? So they told us we couldn’t go and we had to pick another high school to go to. So I had to pick a academic high school to go to, a liberal arts high school. They told us, “Well do that and then when you get out of high school, then you can go to college and figure out what you want to do.” Hmmmm, ok. (laughter) Not fun, but I went to Seward Park High School down on the Lower East Side. So I began to travel, so from junior high school, then I had to travel all the way downtown to Seward Park High School which was on Delancey Street. So I started taking the train, so that was interesting. A group of us from Harlem were going down there and then you had kids from the East Side that were coming down there. It was quite a mixed high school. We had, that was a melting pot. You had African Americans, you had Latinos, you had Asian, you had German, you had Russian, they had, I think they had about twenty one languages you could learn...Chinese. It was an interesting high school. It’s still there, the building is still there, it’s a whole block long, I think the quality decreased around the years I started to-after I graduated, which was unfortunate. So…
So, I’m curious if we’re talking about the time middle school and then going into high school, I’m curious, you know those are formative years as we’re all growing and changing. Um, I’m curious if there are any times that you can recount or a specific incident that you can recount that had kind of a lasting impact on what you believed about gender or identity, during that time.
Well certainly junior high school. So um, I began to think about, well, this started earlier than that, more like elementary school. (Laughter) Like third grade, I loved my female teachers. I loved them ok? And I would write letters to them, I would...the kids would hang around me because for some reason I seemed to be this leader or something. I would just have this gang of people these kids that would hang around me and I would get them to write letters to the teachers and um, so third grade it continued, but again growing up in the society we had been growing up in, I was growing up in, um, you had to kind of keep it under the radar. Went on, junior high school a little bit more, again I start to have these kids that were coming to me...actually some of the students that were friends of mine, there was a little affectionate stuff that was going on. We couldn’t voice it, we couldn’t put a name to it, I thought about at that time, having a...I started to research having a sex change because I felt that I was in the wrong body, so the only thing I could find was going to Sweden and I knew that a little black person could not go to Sweden, did not have the money to do that so, ok? So…
15:53
Where did you do your research?
I just went to the library, went to the library, you know started looking up stuff, you know, they didn’t actually have any, there was no computers, so you couldn’t research, so you had to go to the library and you had to do the Dewey Decimal System, talk about sexuality, and they went into deviant, because at that time we were considered psychiatric unfit, we had a mental illness, um, so again, just kind of putting it under the radar, but I’m still in junior high school and there were friends of mine who I had this friend, she actually turned out a teacher, she had a relationship with a teacher, and the teacher was married and we were like, “Wow, really?” So yeah these things were happening. Um, other friends who, they began to act on their feelings for other friends, and these female friends would come to me and you know, “talk to your friend,” and I’m like, “Ok.” (laughter) And I would talk to this friend and I would say, “Listen, I know how you’re feeling.” You know, meaning I know you have these feelings for this other girl, but you kind of have to keep a lid on it. We weren’t able to again, verbalize what we were feeling, so those were the things that were happening in high school.
[ Annotation 1 ] [ Annotation 2 ]
Do you ever remember conversations within the community, what you might have overheard other people saying about the LGBTQ community, how did your understanding of we can’t talk about this, where did that come from?
Well, you know, um, there was a person that lived in my neighborhood and she was a famous boxer, you can look her up, Jackie Tonawanda, she lived in my area and she would walk her dogs, two big giant pitbulls, nobody would touch her, nobody would look at her and I would see her, you know I’m in the highrise now, and I’m looking out the window and I’m watching these dogs like, that’s a powerful person, I want to be like that. So, I would see an image like that, you know? I would go to the local newspaper store and uh, started reading The Village Voice, started getting my information from there, finding out about as I continued to go through high school and almost ready to go into college, about different things that were happening in The Village. Other images were, another neighbor who was, he was a trans guy, you know? Trans female, he was one of our own local friends, local neighborhood friends and he was himself, so there were images and there were examples in the community, but you know it was considered, alright he’s different, or she’s different and that’s ok, you know, there was no bashing or any of that violence until much later on, so…
Were there any, were you able to actualize any kind of feelings that you had for others around this time?
Not completely, but I will go even further back than that. (laughter) So, when my mom was taking care of these kids when we were kids and the neighborhood girl was hanging out with me at home and you know we were playing around and things were getting a little intimate and I was like, “ok, I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” you know like that? And I actually had a sexual experience with her, I was five years old.
20:20
And how old was she?
Five. So there was an actual intimate moment and we both pulled back and were like, “ok” we put it on the side, we never talked about it, even though we continued to, she continued to stay over to my house, but we never really talked about it, so you know...that was really the first time, so I knew that it was something that was ok. For me, meaning the feelings were ok, but throughout the rest of the years, I just kind of kept it under the radar until it seemed to be ok and that was college. You know, um, neighborhood friend, we used to hang out, we were actually hanging out with some guys, so um, but we began to have more of a communication with each other until we actually had a relationship. So..
And then that was during college, so now when you were in high school, were you expected to, was there an expectation that you would go on to college or were your parents more interested in you having a choice of whatever you wanted to do after school or…
No. (laughter) My expectation was I went through thirteen years of school, I’m taking a break. I’m taking a year off so when I graduated, I just hung out at home, I was like okay, I’ll just hang out. My parents, my mother was very, “Ok, whatchu think you doing?” (laughter) I’m like, “I went to school all these years, it’s time for me to take a year off.” “You better get yourself up and get a job.” So after a month, maybe a month and a half I started looking for a job and started working, started working at an insurance company, so… but in the middle of that there was still this underlying Village Voice, there was still stuff going on there was the first, one of the first parades…
When did you graduate from high school?
‘75.
‘75.
Yeah, um one of the first parades that they had, the Gay Liberation Front where they march from downtown all the way up to Central Park, so it was the reverse. And um, this woman I was dealing with, I was telling her about it, but she wasn’t quite out, she was still kind of hanging on the fence, but I had already started doing my research and I found out they were having this parade and we used to hang out, we used to go walk everywhere in Manhattan, ride our bikes everywhere, and this particular day I said, “come on, let’s just walk,” so we started walking and we coming from Harlem walking down to Central Park is a long walk but we used to do it all the time. And we got to the area, I think it was Sheep Meadow where they were gathering, and we got into Sheep Meadow and she started seeing all the gay flags and banners and she’s like, “what’s going on here?” and I’m like, “they’re having a gay parade, let’s go check it out.” So we went and we checked it out a little bit, she didn’t seem phased by it, you know but it was like, we can kind of talk about this and later on we did, so yeah, I kind of like encouraged her to recognize what was happening with us. So we did that, and actually that day, we continued to, because people were telling us about bars that were downtown, and I was like, “ok,” we went home, changed and went back downtown and we started walking around The Village, went to the East Village, and we saw some lesbians that were following us and um, they stopped us and said, “you look like you’re interested in finding a place to go,” “well, yeah, you know…” so they told us about a club that was opening up on the east side, “ok come back around ten o’clock,” “alright,” it’s like six, seven o’clock, you know we’re not gonna go back uptown, um, so we hung around, had something to eat, got ourselves ready and went over there. It was one of the first lesbian bars that we went to, it doesn’t exist anymore, I forget the name…
24:43
Do you remember where it was?
It was on Third Avenue, wow, I want to say like Ninth Street, but I could be wrong, but it was on Third Avenue over there. Um…
And this was in ‘75/’76?
Nah, this was more like ‘77, yeah. Um, so then they saw us there in the club and they started telling us about these other clubs, Bonnie and Clyde’s, and um, there was one on the Upper East Side, ugh, can’t think of the name, and then of course, not Deja Vu, Duchess, Duchess was downtown on Seventh Avenue, and like Eighth Street, and a couple of others. So that was a Saturday, the next day was Sunday, go to Bonnie and Clyde’s, so ok, got ready, went to Bonnie and Clyde’s and that was like, for me that was the epitome, you go to the library in the dark all the way in the back you get these books that talk about the lesbian, the gay scene, it was like that for me. You walk in, you get checked by the butch at the door, they check you out, you go in, I was like, wow. Whole bar, dance floor, and all of that, and it was great, and all my buddies from school, from high school were there, (laughter) so it was like, (laughter), we were like, “we knew you were gay, we knew you were gay!” It was really funny, it was really great, so we partied all night.
I think that’s interesting that you graduated and then went into this bar where, I don’t know if you had no expectation or if there was like, you know it was like going into this new situation and then it was like, “oh my God, I know you.”
Completely, completely. That we just used to hang around in high school, and that was our kindred spirit. Even though we couldn't verbalize it, there was something with each of us that we knew and we needed to hang out and be together, and that was the confirmation.
That’s really funny.
Yeah.
So you took between high school and then you went back to school after high school?
I started working.
Oh you started working?
Yeah, I was working so between high school and before I went to college, I was working those years.
Okay, so then when did you wind up making your way…
I’m sorry
Into college?
‘77. Yeah, yeah, I started taking classes, I figured I better make a career for myself. So, I went to school for Occupational Therapy.
And where did you go to school?
LaGuardia Community College. That was the first tour and then I started taking other classes at York College. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do this, I said, well if I take it, I’ll do it for a year and I’ll get out. Thirty something years later I’m still there, yeah. That’s how it is.
So you started at the community college and you were taking classes for Occupational Therapy, and you liked it…
Right.
Um, and then you jumped over to York College…
So I could finish the rest of my degree.
And did you live on campus?
It was in Queens, so I commuted.
Ok.
Yeah, yeah.
And so what was kind of your, what was your, I’m curious about your social life and how you balanced that with your academic life during that time.
Well, I took courses during the day and then at night I was hanging out in the bars down in The Village until I met some women who were forming this group called Salsa Soul Sisters, which they have a different name now and they met us, they met me in Bonnie and Clyde’s, and actually me and this woman that we were still dealing with, but at that time we began to just be friends. We stopped the intimacy and was just hangin out with each other. Um, yeah so Salsa Soul was a social organization for African American, Latino, Asian American women and they were trying to get us out of the bars, they wanted us to have more support network, more social network and it sounded interesting, so I went to one of their meetings. They were at a church on West Fourth Street, and um, I started going on a regular basis, every Thursday night having meetings. It was pretty good.
What kind of...sorry...no go ahead...I was going to say what kinds of things were they doing?
They did a lot of different things, you know? A lot of it was just trying to help each other, support each other, there were some women who were having some issues with their family members, um, in fact unfortunately one woman after I guess a year or two of being in the organization, she was coming out and trying to actualize herself, her parents didn’t appreciate it, and she committed suicide. I’ll never forget it. It was hard, hard on us. She was such a lovely person, you know. Um, but she was rejected by her parents and that was tough. Um we did bus fairs, in fact, we did bus fairs, we did some social gatherings, we did Kwanzaa, we started Kwanzaas for kids, as well as the adults. I began to be on the fundraising committee so um, just trying to do a lot of fun things. Again, just being a good support system for lesbians who were coming out and you know who didn’t want to go to bars. A lot of us did not want to be a part of the bar scene, not to say that we didn’t go, you know sometimes you gotta take your hair down, you know? So, they stayed, they are now called African Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change. (laughter) They actually meet at the Lesbian and Gay Center, so they’re still around.
[ Annotation 3 ]
30:58
So I’m curious, during this time you were still living at home.
Right.
Now did you tell your parents or your siblings where you were going? It sounds like you were getting more and more involved in being a support system and some activism, did you disclose to your parents or your siblings?
Not initially. So um, um, my oldest sibling, I disclosed to her, because after that I started meeting other women, different events, the women that I was getting involved in, they were coming around some of my family, extended family events and socials, you know. I’m sure they talked about me, I don’t care. They’re all dead now, so it doesn’t matter. But this particular sister, she thought that maybe it was just a phase I was going through. No this is not a phase but ok, fine if you want to think that, that’s fine. My parents were not quite aware, becuase in fact my mother was still wondering, “when you gonna have a grandchild?” And I’m like, “mom that’s not happening.” (laughter) “That’s not happening.” So um, prior to me moving out, I moved out when I was about twenty five, I had started to go to school and I started working at the clubs at night this would have been around 1980 or ‘81, so Bonnie and Clyde, they were looking for a bouncer, so they hired me as a bouncer. So I stayed there for a good year so that was exciting. (laughter) Back in those days, you know the undercover police would come in and we would have to pass the word around about you know, undercover police is in the bar, don’t touch anybody, keep your hands to yourself, all of that. We had to do all of that, you know? There was a incident once where some soap opera star, his niece or his daughter actually wanted to come to the bar, she wanted to hang out, and she came, and she got drunk and we had to bodily carry her out and put her in a cab and send her home. Because God forbid something happen and she’s in this bar and so on and so forth. So, back in those days the bars, lesbian and gay were run by the mob. You know, the mob had it because they had the money to buy the liquor license. So um, Bonnie and Clyde’s was right next door to a fire station which was kind of interesting, on West Fourth Street, West Third Street actually. So it was kind of interesting. Um, it was a nice venue, the downstairs was the bar and the disco area and they had a upstairs which was a restaurant, a fine dining restaurant, but when the people wanted to dance they would come downstairs and hang out, you know? So it was kind of an interesting little place, um. Yeah so I would, I was going to school and then I would come in and go to sleep and um, work at night and my mother was wondering what am I doing, because I would leave about four o’clock in the afternoon, what you know, “where you going?” “I’m going to work.” “What kind of work you doing?” “Security.” (laughter) Which was really the truth, right? It was like, you know, but she didn’t understand, I was coming in, six o’clock in the morning. “What kind of security jo-” “Security mom, it’s ok.” Um, so eventually I met someone and I moved in with her and that was when I was about twenty five and she lived in Brooklyn, so we stayed together about seven years. She had kids, so I was raising kids. I’ve raised a lot of kids over the years. She had kids, but we lived together and you know just like any kind of domestic family you know? It was ups and downs and all around, you know, but we were still going to Salsa Soul, so we were still doing that Thursday night thing. Um, it was interesting, it was interesting. I began to tell my other siblings what was going on, um, there was a period where my brother had trouble with it and we had you know a break from communicating with each other, which was fine. Um, my parents were getting older and I felt that they needed to know before they left the planet. So um, I told my mom and my mom sat there kind of puzzled she was like, so at that time I considered myself just gay or lesbian, gay, um, she says, “How do you get gay?” My mom says. Like Mom, you don’t get gay, you either are or you aren’t. Ok, and that was the end of that conversation. She stopped asking me about kids, just stopped. Because I said that’s not going to happen, Mom. And then shortly after I told my Dad, he was like, “Hmmm. I don’t know about this.” I was like, “Dad it’s ok, I’m alright.” “Alright, you’re safe? That’s all I want to know.” I said, “yup, I’m safe.” “Ok.” And that was it. Extended family members I didn’t worry too much about. They probably had their suspicions um, but um, it wasn’t anything that I was concerned about, so…
So then you graduate college…
So I graduate college and now I’m on my own and um, where was I? (laughter) Yeah, so I just started working in the field, my work life was, I started working with the developmentally disabled, UCP out on Staten Island, this was around 1982, I did that for a while and I kind of moved around, because as a Occupational Therapist you can go in various populations and um, started there, um, went through psych and I’m still living in Brooklyn, so um, changed over to Psych over at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn the infamous G building which is a lockdown unit um, did that for a while, did pre-vocational counseling, did that for a while, and then um, the source of income changed, meaning funds that were being funneled in were beginning to change, going away from psychiatry and more into skilled nursing. So I started to do skilled nursing. Subacute rehab. So, that’s kind of where I’ve been since...hmmm….early nineties.
What’s the comparison between you know the psych work versus the nursing work?
Well, um, (laughter) there’s a little psych with the nursing stuff too, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Well psych is primarily psych. Most of the people are either outpatient and they come so that pre-vocatio-they were coming from home and coming in to do some skill training and then they would go home, or in a group home. With the skilled nursing, you’re dealing with primarily geriatrics, you know where there’s stroke, there’s cardiac issues, um, arthritis, but there’s always cognitive stuff that’s going on, you know, that is always the underlining thing. But they’re either gonna go home, because let’s say they have an orthopedic problem, so they break a hip, break a knee and then they go home, so we retrain them so they can live comfortably at home, or they stay there, because cognitively they cannot take care of themselves. So, yeah.
39:56
So you were doing the, starting off with the psych work around the same time you were still living in Brooklyn with your partner and how many kids were you living with?
Two kids, a girl and a boy.
Yeah, and you said you had, you’d raised a lot of kids, what was that like for you? Did you enjoy that experience?
Not really. (laughter) It was okay. It was challenging. It’s always the boys, not so much the girls. So with this first partner, her son had a hard time, because for him, I was, he viewed me as another male in the household, because that was my energy and um, that was a challenge for him. Her daughter was lovely, and her daughter would stand up for anyone who would challenge the relationship that her parent had. You know? She would tell her friends, “Listen, if you come into my house just understand that my mother’s in a relationship with another woman (laughter) and if you can’t stand it, don’t come.” Of course they came. So that was them. Another woman I was with she had again, a girl and a boy and the boy had a challenge. He just couldn’t, couldn’t hang with it. You know, we lived, then I moved to New Jersey um…
And when was that?
So, it had to be the middle nineties. My father passed away in ‘94 I moved to New Jersey and I moved in with her. So, yeah.
And where in New Jersey did you move?
Teaneck.
Ok, so you were close to the city still.
Yeah.
And you were still working in the city at that time?
Still working in the city. I was doing a crazy commute, but also my father had passed away but my mother was still in New York up in Harlem and she didn’t want to move. I tried to get her to move and she’s like, “I’m not moving to New Jersey I can sit around and do nothing. Can’t talk to my friends...I’m staying right here until I die.”
And she was still in the same apartment.
She’s still in the same apartment.
Wow.
Still in the same apartment.
Wow.
She did that. She stayed there ‘till she died. She died at home.
Wow.
But I was her caregiver, so I needed to be close to New York so that I could go back and forth, so.
So then, so then I guess we’re talking, we go through Teaneck and you’re caring for your mom and you’re working in the city, right? And then were there, was there anything significant that happened during that period of time that made you want to stay in New Jersey? I’m assuming the relationship ended with the woman that you were living with in Teaneck…
Yeah, well that went on for ten years.
Oh, so it was long term…
Yeah we were together for five years, she was in a male/female relationship. She was married actually.
While you were together…
Well, when we first met.
Oh, ok.
Would you like to hear that story?
I’ll hear any story you want to tell, I’m not picky about my stories.
There’s a lot of stories. I forgot the story when I was younger, but anyway, um...so I met her, I was living in, after I broke up with the first girlfriend, I was living in Englewood, I’m sorry, I was still living in Brooklyn but I had moved to Clinton Hill, this was around 1995. So, I had this wonderful apartment that looked out onto the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge. Living on the twelfth floor and I didn’t have to go anyplace when it came to fireworks, I just had to look out my window.
44:04
Don’t leave, don’t leave, don’t leave!!
Exactly. It was like a beautiful apartment, but anyway it was ceiling to floor windows in the living room and I didn’t have to go anywhere. Anyway, we met, um, so during that time I was still dealing with Salsa Soul but a little more indirectly, I was still every now and then going to bars, but not so much. There were other things going on, um, AIDS started happening, um, so I met this couple, lesbian couple, during those years and they were trying to have more social groups in Brooklyn because they know a lot of, there were a lot of lesbians living in Brooklyn but everybody always seemed to go to New York to have some type of group interaction or participate in some event. So they kind of wanted to target the Brooklyn people, which was fine. They decided to have a, they had a couple dances and then they decided to have a weekend away. So kind of a single women’s weekend, it sounded great. Um, in Ocean City, Maryland. So they planned out all the particulars, had a hotel, booked a couple rooms, we were having events that were going to go on and um, again it sounded great. So, um, I signed up, said ok, sounds good, I’m single, why not. Um, I forget the weekend it was, it was like prior to Memorial Day weekend, something, sometime in May, the weather was breaking. Decided to go down, in the meantime trying to get everybody to coordinate their time that they were going to be down there. There was another woman in Brooklyn who didn’t have a ride that asked me to let her ride with me, rideshare, I was like, “alright as long as you’re not crazy.” So we rode down, it was a nice little ride, went down. Um, got down there and everybody booked their room and they had like a little opening ceremony, a little opening night cocktail thing, everybody, a meet and greet. Um, so we got down there and met these women who were sitting at a table that was on the side, at that time, I used to smoke, they actually asked us to sit on the side so we weren’t bothering anyone else, and talking to these women. So the woman that rode with me and two other women and there was a third woman on the side and um, began to, like, “scuse me, I’m going to light up my cigarette.” This woman on the side was like, “oh can I get a light?” “Ok.” I turned and looked at her and I was like ooof. Beautiful. She’s a beautiful woman. Ok, so anyway, um, so throughout the whole weekend, the five of us kind of hung out. And you know Saturday night there was a dance, went to the dance, I was dancing with her and I was like, “ok so what are you doing down here?” She’s like, “oh I’m just hanging with my friends.” The two other women who were a couple. So I’m like, “what’s your story? Are you single?” “No, I’m not single, I’m married.” I’m like, “oh God, are you kidding me?”
Did you immediately know when she said that, that she was married to a man?
Well, I did not.
Ok.
So I asked. I said, “are you married to a woman or are you married to a man?” “I’m married to a man.” I’m like, “oooo (unintelligible).” I said, “ok, I’m down here to have fun, I’m gonna have some fun with you now.” So we, you know, I started flirting with her, you down here, so apparently you’re looking for something, I don’t know, you know? So we walked around, we went to a couple of other restaurants and during the day we went into, you know how they have those little thrift shops where you can go in off the boardwalk and a couple of little tchotchka things around. So I’m looking around, so this guy had some whips (laughter), so I said, “hmmm” and she’s standing there looking at me right? So I’m like, I’m going to ask the guy how much do these cost? You know, all that and he’s like telling me the price and I started taking it and doing like this in the air, whipping the whip around in the air and she got this glint in her eye and I was like “oh, oh, I know your story now.” (laughter) So alright, I left, no actually I bought the whip, I did buy it, um, so we all got back and went to the dance and started dancing that night and I was dancing very close to her and...anyway long story short, we eventually hooked up after a while, ok. She worked in New York but she lived in Paterson, New Jersey. So we started having kind of a romance. I would meet her in the city. We would have a one week date and um, there used to be another gay club, I forget these names. It was right on Fifty Seventh Street and Third Avenue. It was a one word club, I’ll have to give you the name, and we used to meet there every Thursday and she would stay there after work, we would meet and talking, and schmoozing, and kissing, and all of that stuff. Eventually we got together after about a year, that would be around 1996. And um, she eventually left her husband there was a little stuff that was going on, he was abusive guy and she needed to leave, she had to leave one night and emergency basis because he was about to explode. She had to actually go to a shelter, which she stayed there for a few months and eventually she got a place in Teaneck and I moved in with her, so um, still working in New York, still working in New York, back and forth.
50:40
From Teaneck to Brooklyn?
Teaneck to, no actually, so during that time period, so now we’re talking about middle nineties, um, the industry kind of exploded in a way that allowed us to do contract work. So, you might have had a full time job but you could also work contract, or you could just do contract all the time, you get a higher rate of pay, but of course you have to pay your own taxes and all that stuff. So that's what I was doing for a couple of years. I was making money, you know? I took care of what I needed to take care of, you know insurance wise, and it was working, I was driving from Teaneck all the way out to Sands Point, Long Island (laughter)...
You must have really loved this girl…
To Staten Island and then back to Teaneck, New Jersey. I was doing this loop. I bought a new car, forget it, I put the mileage on that car like crazy, ok? The money was crazy at that time, so, yeah, it was nuts.
Ok...and you two were living together for five years?
Yeah, five years.
What happened? What ended it?
Well, you know sometimes you can be lonely and you’re in a relationship. She really wasn’t giving me what I needed, we started hanging out with a group of people who were my friends first and you know, we started traveling together and it was fine, you know, I was still not getting what I needed even though we were talking about it. She had extended family members and she was giving more of her attention to them and she also allowed exes to come back into her life. And it was this whole thing, and I was like, “what are you doing? I thought we were supposed to be together.” You know? Pre-marriage, um, so I stepped out on her with a friend who was in that circle. And we didn’t get intimate, but we talked, so that whole thing of you’re talking so you must be flirting, you must be having a relationship, but we were just talking. She was having the same situation with her partner, her partner wasn’t giving her what she needed so we started to talk. So, um, my partner asked me to leave, so alright, I left. Um, me and the other woman eventually got together but it was really out of loneliness maybe? You know? I knew I wasn’t going to be with her forever and I actually didn’t want to do anything with her, but you know, things happen. Um, so that only lasted for a few months and eventually I got my own place and just kind of went on with what I needed to do for myself.
So when you got your own place, did you stay in New Jersey?
I did, I did.
Oh.
Why not? (laughter) Why not? So I eventually moved to um, Englewood, which I loved, after I moved out of Englewood, I moved to Hackensack, I forget what the circumstances were, it was something about the rent, the rent was getting to high, so I moved to Hackensack for a bit. And I was there and um, again, I stopped going to Salsa Soul after I guess middle nineties, again the whole AIDS crisis, I lost my sister and um, ‘95, she developed the AIDS related complex from getting a blood transfusion. Um, so she passed and that was tough on my mom because she came to live with my mom because she couldn’t take care of herself anymore and um you could just see my sister wasting away and my other siblings did not want to tell my mom how sick she was and I’m like, “are you crazy? Look at her, she’s like half her size,” she looked sick, her skin was dark, she had thrush, she had the whole thing, I’m like, “come on, you have to tell Mom.” So eventually I had to tell my mother, you know, “your daughter’s dying, she’s dying” and why she was dying was because, she had a blood transfusion when she had her second child back in the eighties and she contracted the AIDS related complex.
55:11
And this was shortly after your father had passed too, right?
Yeah it was like actually a year later, because he was sick and she was taking care of him and once he died her illness accelerated, so I was going to the hospital for one year everyday to see my sister. She was the first one I told about my life, so she was up in St. Luke’s and they were doing some terrible things at that time, keeping people in back wards and stuff like that and I was like, “no, I’m getting you out of here. I’m signing you out, you’re going down to St. Vincent’s.” So I got her down to St. Vincent’s because of course they were doing treatment that was necessary. If I didn’t get her down there she probably wouldn’t have lasted as long as she did. But unfortunately, she was still in the hospital, and um, so I would just go down there and stretch her, she was in the ICU, stretch her, stretch her arms and everything. She wasn’t getting any movement, she was bed bound, it was horrible. You know? So, yeah.
What year did she pass away?
‘95, ‘95, yeah. It was tough. Her son, that particular child he was not okay after that. I don’t even know where he is to this day. We tried to get him to come live with us. He couldn’t. He got on drugs, he was out in the street, he was on alcohol, he got arrested several times, as far as I know to this day, I think he is down south with his father’s family, but I don’t even know if that is correct he just couldn’t adjust. No matter what we tried, he couldn’t adjust. The oldest sibling, um, my nephew, he’s doing ok. He’s got a family, he’s fine. You know, um, where my sister lived, they allowed him to stay in that apartment, he did not have to move, which was nice. You know? So, he’s a survivor. Moving on…
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
So yeah, I stayed in Englewood, went to Hackensack, went to Dumont, came back, Dumont is further north in New Jersey and eventually got back down to Englewood, so I stayed in Englewood for about six years.
And all this time you’re still doing the Long Island, Staten Island…
Well, no that changed to just New Jersey.
Oh, ok.
Eventually, because I couldn’t do that anymore, yeah. So did contract work in New Jersey for a while. Couple companies, I worked a couple companies and um, contract work began to slowly decrease, decline, so I had to eventually just stick with one company so I did that. CareOne comes to mind. Shouldn’t mention any names. (laughter) So, yeah.
So then what prompts the move to Asbury Park? When does that, where in the timeline does that happen?
Well I had always been traveling down to, after my Ocean City trip, I loved, you have to go through Rehoboth Beach and I love Rehoboth Beach. I started going down to Rehoboth Beach twenty plus years now. Twice I tried to buy down there, just couldn’t find a place to live or buy at the time, so I still go down there, matter of fact now I have friends who bought down there, I’m like, “wait a minute! I was supposed to be first!” Um, I love the beach, love the beach. So after living in Englewood, I moved from Englewood and I was looking in Maywood, and I had a relationship with someone who was completely crazy. A woman. She was a narcissist, you know, this was 2015 right before my mother passed away. Um, 2014, I was just socking away money, socking away money, ok I’m going to buy something. Looking in New Jersey, looking in that area, it was too expensive, taxes. Teaneck was expensive, off the charts. Looked in Hackensack, same thing. I said alright, let me move farther down, I started looking in Elizabeth, I have some friends in Elizabeth. Still too high, so I went further down, into more central Jersey. Monroe Township, which is senior citizen heaven. I’m about that age…
I don’t believe…
Why not buy? You don’t have to. I was able to buy a condo down there. Taxes were right, price was right. I was like I’ll buy the condo, still with this crazy woman. Um, and she saw all this happening and she was a nurse, but she um, I said well I’ll keep it for two years maybe I’ll rent, we can get something else, she wanted to get married. I met her in Rehoboth Beach, ugh. Um, I said, “Let’s keep it for two years,” but right before we got together she wanted to get married, my friends were like, “you better not marry that woman. She’s gonna take you to the cleaners. If you marry her, she’s going to have half, fifty percent of your pro-you know, everything!” I’m like, “you know, you’re right.” So we had a civil ceremony. Um, she did it, but she wasn’t happy about it and we did it in Asbury Park, actually, we got a bed and breakfast and we did it there. A whole big thing, you know, just like we got married. No papers, though. Um, so I’m like, you know what? This is the beach, so after I eventually, ooof, got away from that spider web, because that was a spider web, took me a whole year, to get away from that. My mother died in 2015, one hundred and two years old, and uh, (laughter) I’m like okay, I gotta get out of this, so eventually I was able to sell. 2017, and um, reconnected with some old friends that I knew from like thirty years ago, you know I was like, I don’t know where I’m gonna live. I don’t want to go back north, you know, I’m kinda down here already, can I stay with you for a while? So I stayed with a friend for a few months 'till I figured out, cleared my head to figure out where I wanted to go. So I said, let me start looking over at the beach area. Why not? So I did and um, was able to find an apartment, I didn’t want to buy again, I was like let me just get an apartment, because I don’t think I’m gonna stay. And um, so that’s what I did. And my plan is not to stay. I will eventually be in Delaware as my last stop. So, yeah.
And was the community in Asbury attractive to you as well?
Yeah definitely, it’s been there for years. And I used to come down to Asbury all the time, you know?
And the company, are you still working with the same company?
Different company. Yeah, no more contract work. Different company, um, and I don’t know. Things have changed in the industry a lot. Just like back in 1999-2000 they were talking about PPS and all this managed care and all that, well last year they changed some regulations, federal regulations so things are different. And a lot of the rehab companies, even though I am signed up with a lot of different rehab companies, because sometimes they need extra work, they need extra staff, um, it has changed what they can do in that regard so for um, October of 2019, I used to have a, I used to work six days a week. My regular job was five days and then I would work that sixth day with another company, well that got stopped. That sixth day got stopped. Those companies could not do anything, in fact the company that I work with now, they let some people go, some therapists go, we can’t afford you anymore. They’re not getting the funds they used to get from the government, you know? Um, Medicare has changed, so um, we got a lot of decreases. My hourly work week has decreased a lot so I’ve had to tighten up some things, you know? And you know, I’m just about ready to get out. (laughter) I’m ready to do something else. I’m not ready to retire, but close to it. But not yet. Yeah.
When, and how, or if you said you were predominantly identifying as a gay woman for a period of time but then you had also expressed those experiences as a teenager going to the library and researching that what was kind of the trajectory of that thought process or that emotional process?
Well, you know, that was a term that was okay to use. Gay, lesbian, that was okay. It was after the American Medical Association said that we are no longer mentally ill. Okay, I was able to do that and it just seemed like it was this thing where you had to have “identify” as something or someone, right? Um, I always knew I was attracted to women, since five years old, um, so it seemed right that I can use that or identify myself as such. Over the years it changed because now it became now just, not just gay, lesbian, there’s bisexual, and of course now transgender, we’re accepting even with the lesbian it was now butch lesbian, or stud, or you know AG and so those sounded right to me too, the AG and butch lesbian which I used to call myself butch lesbian, and that seemed right, you know? Because it was more of a, and I hate to use the term male, it was more of that strong energy that permeated for me, you know? So, back in the day growing up in Harlem when you were hanging out, it was either one or the other. I had older butches who used to take me out and um, you went to a club and you were either seeing butch lesbians or lesbian, femme lesbians and that was it and it was the way that you could identify who you wanted to be attracted to, you know? Or who you wanted to go out with and that was the norm, you know? There was no question. Again, I evolved, realized that, that initial thought back in pre high school, you know that I really am not in the right body and it was ok to begin to recognize that maybe I can do this. Maybe I can make that change to actualize myself. So that started two, three years ago that I can now say I’m transgender. I began the process of making the changes, you know? Initially medically, you know and physically, hopefully this year I can be able to do that.
[ Annotation 4 ]
Obviously totally up to you how much or how little you want to share, but do you kind of see yourself as having specific benchmarks or specific goals that you want to reach over a period of time?
What do you mean?
Are there medical transitions or hormones…
Well I am on hormones right now. You know there was always this question, do the physical changes, meaning have top surgery or you know or bottom surgery or do hormone therapy, and I chose to do hormone therapy first, so that’s what I’m doing right now and there are changes that are occuring, you know? My mustache is more significant (laughter). I kind of always had the facial hair but now it’s like forget it. I used to shave every morning anyway, um, that seemed to be a trait in my family with the females and um, but now it’s like shooo, by two o’clock it’s already out, so I’m like, I’m not ready to go full beard, but I may have to, you know, I may have to just go full beard and let it come out completely because it’s already there, you know? Um, chest hairs, I always had a center chest hair, always, started when I was a teenager, puberty. Now, it’s all over my body (laughter), I’m looking at my back and I’m like, wow, what’s happening. So yeah, things are changing. So, top surgery is the next thing, um, I know some other trans people in the community, trans men in the community who wanted to have done bottom surgery, I’m not sure if that is something that I will do only because of my age. I have talked to some of the medical professionals and it’s not an easy thing with my age. If I was younger, certainly I would.
[ Annotation 5 ]
70:06
So, it seems like and I don’t want to oversimplify, um, it seems like when you came out as gay to your siblings, it was maybe a little bit rocky, but it sounds like over the course of time, things have kind of repaired themselves and it sounds like you have a decent relationship with your siblings at this point, so I’m curious about if you disclosed to them about your feelings about your own personal gender and identity now and what the reaction was from them to that, if you are comfortable sharing that.
No, I don’t have a problem sharing. Well, my sister who is five years older, she has always been the one after my older sister passed away she’s been the one, my go to person, the middle child always seems to have issue, ok? And that’s the other sister who is now the oldest. Um, I’ve shared with my sibling, my go to person a while ago what was happening and she was okay with it, that’s fine. Like I said the middle child she still has some issues, in fact right now we are kind of like not talking too much, you know for other reasons, not necessarily who I am, just, we just disagree on a couple things. I recently got a text from this middle child and she’s, “hey sis, what’s happening,” whatever,
Ooh.
Yeah. Oooh. So I said, “well I’m not going to respond back, should I send her a letter?” I had to sit on it for a minute or two. So I texted her back, “hello, this is Graeme, your brother. Get used to it. Hope you’re well. I’m doing great.” That was it. She says, “okay.” (laughter)
Just one word?
Just one word, okay. You know? So, she has trouble you know? And that’s fine.
Does she have children?
She does. She has one child.
Does the child know about…
Not particularly. And not because I didn’t hide anything from her, but because she is um, she was a preemie so she had some issues cognitively and she has managed in the world, but there are some things that are not completely okay, so you know. I don’t impress upon her too much. Holidays, birthdays, she’ll reach out to me but that’s really it. But when she was a baby I took care of her, you know I lived at home and she used to come to me. I used to put her on my chest. We had a closeness when she was younger. Um, that changed when she got older which was fine, you know? So…
Are you close with other nieces and nephews?
Pretty much. Except for one who lives out in California. We had a situation last year where this particular sibling who was my sister’s daughter and she has a daughter and a son. Girls and boys. (laughter). So she lives out in Hollywood in California and she’s a dancer. She grew up in Alvin Ailey and she toured in Alvin Ailey, um, she did some Broadway shows when she was here in New York and so she wanted to go out there and kind of make a name for herself which is fine. She got married to this young man which was a nice guy. He is also a, he was also a producer so the two of them get together and they want to go out there and do some stuff, some productions and so on and so forth. She had a baby, so I have a grand-niece from her and last summer we decide to get together and do a “family thing” which was under the guise of her wanting to go out there because they were having a special, apparently on Martha’s Vineyard and this is the first time I’ve been there, on Martha’s Vineyard they have this week where it’s African American Week and all the name African Americans go up there, there’s shows that are going on, there’s events that are going on and I’m like, okay. So, it was very crowded up there. I don’t do crowds. So she wanted us to go and she wanted me to communicate with my grand-niece and my grand-niece hasn’t seen me, you know? She hasn’t seen me in a long time, so she was trying to force the issue, but she was also going out. Every time we looked she was going to an event, I’m like, “I thought you were supposed to be here, I don’t understand.” Um, so it got to a point where I wasn’t comfortable with what was happening, I said, “you know what, I’m going to cut my vacation short.” We were supposed to stay up there a week, after three days I said, “you know what? I’m going home. I’ll see you guys.” So I guess she got upset about that, whatever, and uh so we haven’t communicated since then. The grand-niece and I did not really connect because it wasn’t enough time to make that connection and she wasn’t around. It was her opportunity to be there so we could then make the connection. She didn’t have time for that. So I haven’t spoke to her since last year. Her mother, my sister contacted me during my birthday which was in January. Every birthday, I just said thank you. But, I felt that I went home in August and you didn’t bother to call me and say, “Hey, did you get home okay, are you alright? Okay, talk to you another time.” That’s all, so I felt really hurt by that. There’s no communication. So, you know, that happens in my family, we don’t talk and nobody wants to kind of take the time to show the care, do the talking like they should, when they need something, they call me up. I can’t. I can’t anymore, so...I have my life over here, I have my friends who are my family, you know. I have different factions of them, some up in North Jersey, some here in Central Jersey and that works for me.
76:41
You’ve mentioned over periods of time that you’ve kind of been able to find social networks and you’ve been able to find kind of support structures and support groups. Has that evolved or changed at all in the last three or four years?
No, it’s become more, particularly with Robert Wood Johnson, you know Proudly Me, the Community Advisory Panel, um, since things have changed in my work life, I decided to do a little certification, looking for other areas that I can expand with my experience and so I took a certification in aging in place because my, you know I work with geriatrics and people always call me you know, “do you know of a aide who can help you out, can help us out, whatever,” So I’ve kind of been like doing that, and since that certification I figured, you know what, maybe that’s the new business I need to go into. You know, I’m kind of doing it unofficially, but I’m beginning to make it more official, so you know. When I did the contract work, I had to get my own LLC, so I do have that, um, so it’s just a matter of kind of organizing and formulating things more concretely. So, I do the advocacy and I like doing it, I think it’s needed, one of the groups that I work with is HYSSOP Housing and they’re having a little trouble kind of reboot, they’ve been around since 2012…
What’s the name of the organization?
HYSSOP Housing H-Y-S-S-O-P like the flower, Hyssop? What they’ve been trying to do is establish a home for lesbians of color, senior lesbians of color, fifty five plus and the people who love them. That’s their slogan. They’ve been trying to do this for a while, now there is another organization called SAGE who now has a building in New York, in Brooklyn, there’s I think another building in Jersey City, and then around the country there are other communities that are being formulated and built up. Trying to reboot HYSSOP, right here in Jersey.
What’s your participation, what has it meant or what has it been like working with Proudly Me and the Robert Wood folks?
Well, it’s been good. They’re very supportive, they’re there for us, I’m now the chairperson for the Community Advisory Panel, so you know, I guess they believe in me, um, so yeah, I’m having a good time with them. I can always reach out to them and they’re there which is a good thing. And you know Robert Wood is doing a lot of stuff, Rutgers, you know, um, for the community, the LGBTQ community which is so important, you know? It’s good to know they’re putting their name out there and stand by whatever they’re doing, you know? So, it’s great.
80:04
What do you, I’m curious about what you hope to achieve, what is the objective of the Community Advisory Board and then what do you hope to achieve going forward through 2020?
We hope to, which we already started the initiative last year, doing more training in long term care facilities and we’ve been well received in three, so we want to train the staff, we’re doing administration first, um, then we’ll try to do the down staff, um, and get them to understand that there are LGBTQ individuals that are going to be coming into your facility. I remember working in and met with couples who came into long term care facilities and one member would say that they’re just the caregiver, or the sister, or the aunt, you know and it was like, why? Why do you have to deny yourself after all these years? You shouldn’t have to deny who you are or how you lived your life, so our goal is really to do more and we’re doing the aftercare. That’s the other thing. This company, I won’t mention the name (laughter) is doing these trainings, but they’re not doing the aftercare and that’s what we want to do. We want to do the aftercare. We want to do the training and then a few months later come back, check, see if there’s any more questions, see if you need us to redo another training, maybe a particular person has a difficulty, you know, but do more of that, and I think and hopefully we’ll get to other areas. We’re working primarily in Middlesex County, but I hope eventually that we’ll get to all the other counties, you know? So, that’s our goal for 2020.
And is that all being run through the Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas system?
Mm-hmm. They’re our backbone.
[ Annotation 6 ] [ Annotation 7 ]
I was curious if you had any kind of any opinions or perspective on the, one of the things that comes up a lot in this project is the generational conversation, um, and that the ability to be out in a lot of ways is a fairly recent thing for a lot of, a significant portion of the community and at the same time there’s more and more young people that are presenting to therapists or presenting to schools you know having honest conversations with their parents, so I was curious if you had any thought or perspective in terms of like the difference between maybe what it was like when you were a kid versus what it’s like now for kids who have these thoughts or feelings.
Well I think the younger generation needs to thank us, (laughter) for being the pioneers that stood out there, that marched, that protested, all of that. They need to think about us. You know, we were out there and we couldn’t be as open. Just think of Stonewall. You know, um, we had to fight just for being who we are, you know, so they have the freedom now. There’s a lot more freedoms, there’s a lot more visibility, which is good, right? So, um, I give it to them for having that, that moxy, that whatever that they can do that and don’t care, but they have to understand there was a path that was opened for them. And respect the path, because we’re still here. We’re still here. We’re not going yet. You know, so um, you know, that’s what I say about it, you know? It’s a good thing, but again, thank us. And you know when we have the meetings there are some younger people there and we try to get them to have that exchange so we both can understand each generation can understand each other. But, we are first.
84:21
Are there any kind of like advocacy issues or policy things that you’re following now that you think need to change or you know? Or cultural things that you’re kind of aspiring towards?
Well, um, hmmmm. Cultural things. Well, you know, I think again it’s, it’s we all have to understand that we are all striving for the same thing, which is really to live as comfortably as possible, to be comfortable in our own skin, you know, um, and to accept each other, you know? We’re all human and that’s the biggest part of it. We’re all human, whatever difference you have, you know, okay we understand it, we respect it, but we’re all human. And, just want to live a happy life, you know. So no matter what coat you have on, African American, Latino, Asian, you know, whatever the outside coat, in here, in your heart, it’s just enough that we just want to be okay with each other, you know?
Any follow ups? I think the only, the final question I have is what, is there a piece of your story that we missed that is integral to the whole Graeme.
There is a little piece that I forgot to mention (laughter). So I have to go back again, childhood. So, um, I had a aunt who was named Frances, and actually that is my dead name. My mother named me after her and um, I used to go to her house. Her and my other aunt, they’re sisters. They lived together with their mother, so my grandmother. They took care of her. Um, in a public housing across from Mount Sinai Hospital. So my parents used to take me down there every weekend, and I loved it because that’s how I became more autonomous, you know? They allowed me to do things in the house, allowed me to be the boss, is what they called me. We used to go shopping together and she wouldn't even go. She was a domestic so she would get on a train and go out to Long Island and work at these people’s homes and um, what she learned she would bring back to the family which was great. Because they always did like, um, Thanksgiving dinners, so our family we did in sections. One family did Thanksgiving, one family did Christmas and we were all go and um, so after a while, I think my mother became jealous because whatever I wanted my aunt gave it to me. I can ask for a thing, she would just give it to me, okay? And I began to go down there by myself, when I was able to travel by myself like ten years old, I was able to get on the bus fifteen cents and go down to one hundred street and stay at my aunt’s for the whole weekend and a lot of the times I didn’t want to come back home, but anyway, I would come back home, because I’m coming home to a crowded house. I was there, I was by myself and I was the boss. But I think my mother got jealous at some point because she felt like maybe I was being taken away and it was like, she stopped me from going down there. And I was very upset about that, like, “why are you doing this? Why can’t I go? “You can’t go.” “Okay.” You know, so becoming a teenager and being able to really just go by myself, I was able to go down there. So I think that was kind of a significant point, um, you know there was some family issues with that. The sister that lived with her, sister, Aunt Josephine, she was a seamstress so her and my father, my father was a tailor, and at one point had an opportunity to sing with the New York Philharmonic. My father used to sing in church and a recruiter started coming to church to hear him sing. He had a beautiful voice, but declined the invitation to sing with the Philharmonic so he could continue to sing with his church choir. My father was a tailor, but it was Aunt Josephine who taught me how to sew. I used to sew my own clothes. I would always get a whole new wardrobe every school year, because she would make me my whole wardrobe. I never had to buy anything other than shoes. It was nice. Um, so once Aunt Frances passed away, she was one of the early ones. All of my aunts and uncles passed away very quickly,so that was very devastating for me and I think I went through a period of depression. And nobody could understand why this eleven year old person was depressed. Didn’t want to do anything, didn’t want to go outside, nobody investigated that. You know, and I kind of had to go through it. Even in school, kids, friends, “what’s the matter with you?” I would tell them, “my aunt passed away.” “Well okay, we’re sorry, but you’ll get over it.” “I don’t know.” And it did take a while. It took awhile for me to really get over, I mean I kind of buried it. But when I was with my first partner in Brooklyn there was a period something was going on and I just began to bawl. Because I knew if my aunt was still living I would not be having struggles. I think I was having some struggles with something. I would not have had those struggles that I was having. She would be there to help me out, you know? So that was a tough time, I was able to scream and holler, I miss you, I’m angry at you, you left me, that whole thing. My girlfriend was able to hold me at the time, but she didn’t understand, she had never met this person. So that’s a piece I wanted to throw in there.
Thank you for sharing that.
Yeah, yeah it’s fine.
It’s the whole picture. Great. Is there any other question that you would ask you if you were interviewing you.
If I was asking me. Well, (sigh) (laughter) well, what took you so long. That’s pretty much what it is. What took you so long, you know?
What do you think the answer is?
Well you are where you are and when it’s time, time is right. Three years ago I knew the time was right. Everything happens in its time.
Do you mind me asking, we didn’t ask at the top what year were you born?
1957.
‘57 okay.
Sixty three.
I don’t believe it. You can say it for the record, I’m still not going to believe it. You’re going to end with a compliment? Yup. Great if you’re comfortable, if we’re kind of rounding it out, I can stop the recorder now.
Okay.