REMINDER: My Interview is Tonight at 7

Here are the links to tonight’s interview. Pick the one you’re most familiar with. (These links are evergreen. You can click on them anytime!!!)

 

Facebook Link: https://www.facebook.com/165307246844830/posts/5988841137824716/

YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIlGD5nZsIM

Twitch Link: https://www.twitch.tv/NDBMedia

 

And here is a link to my first interview with Roger on June 3 2009:  http://tobtr.com/549461

 

Tonight, for the very first time in a long time (since Star Trek’s 50th anniversary five years ago), I will

be interviewed online.  I’m glad it’s Roger D. Noriega interviewing me, because we go back a long way — probably at least twelve or thirteen years.

 

The interview will be archived, so if you miss it live at 7 Pacific Time tonight, don’t fret; you can catch it later at your convenience. I’ll post the link on my home page here at Yellow Balloon Publications. (And probably on this page, too.)

 

I’ll see if I can get the link to my interview with Roger from five years ago, too, so I can post both of them for your enjoyment. The old one is an audio; this one will be on video… even though I’m missing a tooth at the moment!

 

(I’m still considering wearing a mask if it doesn’t interfere with articulation too much. I’m very self-conscious about the temporary gap in my smile!  I’m very grateful for mask mandates right now, although I was wearing  a mask in public even before the mandate, so it’s second nature these days.)

 

 

 

Roger and I had a very short discussion about my preferred pronouns when we chatted a few days ago.  I told him not to worry about it. He  has known and referred to me for so long as “she” and “her” that he was afraid he’d slip up and use those pronouns again, so I said, “Don’t worry about referring to me as she and her.  I’m so used to it that even I still do it as often than not.  It’s a HABIT after 70 years!”  The last thing I want to do is have anyone stressing while chatting with me.

 

Those who came later into my life (up to about four years ago, when I came out as transgender) ought to refer to me as him and his (just out of respect for my proclaimed essence); they have no excuse.

 

But those who have known me forever, if they can’t make the switch, I just let it go.  I consider myself Two Spirit, anyway, since I was raised as a girl even though my brain has always been male. I have a nurturing side, and that side that feels fine with female pronouns. (“Mom-cat. Mom-goat. Mom-rat.) It’s sexist as hell to feel that way  — there are and have been many nurturing guys in this world (among them, DeForest Kelley, Mr. Rogers, Dr. Fauci, Robert F. Kennedy, Chris Bailey, and Joe Biden) — but I never knew any personally until I was an adult (or, in the case of De Kelley, a teenager).

 

People who were raised knowing about (or studying) the gender spectrum had no problem making the switch in my pronouns (Chris Bailey, Billie Rae Walker, and Lisa Twining Taylor among them) but I can certainly understand why it’s harder for others to remember.  Even though I’m flat-chested now and have always worn  men’s clothing, my voice is still high and I’m more “hippy” than guys are, so I’m still mis-gendered much of the time when I’m out and about.  I just let it go.  It isn’t a hill worth dying on or making a big stink over.  (This is just me. I know it’s a big deal for other people. PLEASE ALWAYS RESPECT EACH INDIVIDUUAL’S RIGHT TO BE ADDRESSED THE WAY THEY WANT.  It shows you care. Don’t be a jerk.)

 

I do know that when people get my pronouns right, I often feel like crying.  It feels so RIGHT, and was so FERVENTED WISHED FOR for most of my life and LONG-AWAITED, that it’s a very emotional thing for me to hear it, or to see it written down in black and white.

 

So whenever you think of it, please use my preferred pronouns!  THANK YOU!