A Portland show, Igniting Voices, will explore an evolution of the experiences of presenters ages 16 to 76
Marilyn Lowles was 51 when she realized her gender identity. As someone assigned male at birth, she was living as a man at the time. Her wife suggested they switch gender roles for a Halloween party, her wife dressing as a man and Lowles dressing as a woman. It was 1994.
“I was trying a trial run the night before to see how long it was going to take me and what this was going to look like,” she said. “But it was when I discovered myself. So I put this makeup on, and this wig on, and I slowly lifted my eyes up to look in the mirror … and for me, staring back at me was what was inside of me all these years that I always felt ashamed of.”
She started going to meetings at the Northwest Gender Alliance, and met other trans people, many who were in the closet like her. She began to build a community, and to venture out dressed as a woman.
“I was very fearful — fearful I could lose my job, fearful I could lose my family,” she said. “So, I wanted to be dressed all the time. I wanted to be me, but I didn’t think that was even possible. So I put it back in the closet and stayed there. … I thought, well this is probably as good as it gets.”
It would be 22 more years before Lowles transitioned, living as a woman in all aspects of her life. She was 74.
“I had to sit there and think for a minute, because I thought, if I do this, there will be some physical changes, with potentially my body, that might be noticeable,” she said. “But also, this would mean telling everybody. Telling my brothers, telling my extended family, my stepsons and their wives, as well as my kids and grandkids, and friends. And I thought, no, I’m ready. I’m ready for this.”
Lowles is one of six transgender and nonbinary storytellers who will speak Feb. 22 at Igniting Voices. Created by the organization Our Bold Voices, Igniting Voices is an intergenerational storytelling event uplifting and celebrating trans and nonbinary lives of all ages. The event will focus on the personal stories of the speakers, showing an evolution of the experience of gender-nonconforming people over the years.
Lowles is the oldest storyteller at 76. Tyler Horan, the youngest storyteller, is 16. Horan realized he was trans when he was 12.
“The first day that I walked into the room (to rehearse for Igniting Voices) with all of these trans people, specifically the two trans men in their 30s, I started crying,” he said. “Because I had never been in a room with people that had succeeded in their transition. I’d never really been exposed to people, because I was always taught that trans kids die.
“So that’s scary, and that was a scary thought. And then I walked into this room, and there were men with beards and deep voices, and they ride motorcycles, and they have this presence about them that is so strong and powerful, and I just started crying. And everyone was like, ‘Are you OK?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m fantastic, because for once in my life I’m seeing what I want to look like.’”
Horan said he hopes his presence at the event will show people that you’re never too young to be valid in your gender identity. The world that Horan is growing up in is very different from the world in which many of the older storytellers grew up, but many of the issues remain the same, said Jamison Green, another one of the storytellers.
“I think we’ve made a tremendous amount of progress since the ’80s, and now that progress is being threatened,” Green said.
Green transitioned in the 1980s and chose to live openly as a transgender man. Since then, he has been a leading activist for legal protections, health care access, workplace equity, and civil rights for trans people. His work directly led to the removal of transgender exclusions in Medicare and Medicaid in 2014. In 2004, he published “Becoming a Visible Man,” part autobiography, part analysis of the transgender experience in light of the sociopolitical factors in the U.S. An updated version will be republished this year.
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“If we could make the world safe for ourselves and people like us, then the ones who come after us will have a much better life,” Green said. “And the whole hope to me is that young trans people won’t have to struggle as much as they have, as much as we did, as much as people are now. There’s still so much to be done to improve trans lives.”
According to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, transgender people have higher rates of poverty and suicidality than their cisgender peers. The statistics also show that transgender people continue to face workplace discrimination, health care discrimination, mistreatment at school, mistreatment by police, and lack of acceptance at home because of their gender identity. Violence, discrimination and poverty rates are significantly increased for transgender and gender-nonconforming people with intersecting marginalized identities, most significantly and broadly for black transgender and gender-nonconforming people, according to the National LGBTQ Task Force.
These statistics are a call to action, and they also don’t tell the whole story of the beauty and strength of the trans community in the face of oppression. With Igniting Voices, Paul Iarrobino, the founder of Our Bold Voices, wants to center the resilience in the trans and gender-nonconforming storytellers.
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“I didn’t want … this event to be a political event,” he said. “I wanted it to be an event that celebrates our community, because I feel like when we’re fighting so much, we forget about our own resilience, and we forget about the creativity that exists in the community. We forget about sort of what ignites us.
“So it’s not to deny that that’s a reality, but I also think it’s really hard for trans people to come forward and share (their) story when the trans community is being persecuted. So for me it’s about celebrating and uplifting voices.”
Iarrobino founded Our Bold Voices in 2017. Besides holding storytelling events, the organization also provides story coaching and offers trainings centered on LGBTQ+ aging issues. Much like some of the stories of Igniting Voices, Iarrobino’s journey to storytelling wasn’t linear. He left a 23-year career at age 52 after discovering storytelling two years earlier, when he decided to tell his first story at a Moth storytelling competition and ended up placing second.
Since then, Our Bold Voices’ events have run the gamut, covering topics such as living with HIV long term, coming out, and aging and sexuality, often centering the LGBTQ+ community.
“We need more and more allies,” Lowles said. “And I’m hoping that people who come, maybe some of them don’t know too many, or know any, trans people. And they walk away going, ‘See, they’re just people like we are; I’d like to be friends with this person or that person,’ and they become an ally for us. So that … our community will have more and more acceptance. And people will start pushing against those forces that are trying to push us back in the closet.”
IF YOU GO
WHAT: Igniting Voices, a show featuring stories from six trans and nonbinary storytellers, and a performance by Acchord, an a cappella group composed of transgender, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming musicians
WHEN: 3-4:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 22, 2020
WHERE: Eliot Center, 1011 SW 12th Ave., Portland
TICKETS: $0-35; no one will be turned away for inability to pay
ACCESSIBILITY: ASL interpretation provided
AFTER THE SHOW: From 4:30 to 6 p.m., First Unitarian Portland, 1211 SW Main St., is hosting a night market that supports local transgender agencies and businesses.
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