Oral History Program Elizabeth Brummett Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 4 September 2021 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Elizabeth Brummett Interviewed by Lorrie Rands 4 September 2021 Copyright © 2022 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description Queering the Archives oral history project is a series of oral histories from the LGBTQ+ communities of Weber, Davis and Morgan Counties of Northern Utah. Each interview is a life interview, documenting the interviewee’s unique experiences growing up queer. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Brummett, Elizabeth, an oral history by Lorrie Rands, 4 September 2021, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Elizabeth Brummett conducted on September 4, 2021, in the Stewart Library Special Collection Reading Room by Lorrie Rands. Elizabeth talks about growing up in the Salt Lake City/Murray area of Utah as an outsider of the predominate culture, and of indigenous ancestry. She shares coming to understand her own queerness and that of her family. She also recounts her schooling and working as a therapist in various states. LR: Today is September 4, 2021. We are in the Stewart Library Special Collections with Elizabeth Brummett doing an oral history interview for the LGBTQ+ stories here at the Stewart Library. My name is Lorrie Rands conducting the interview. To start off with, I identify as straight and my pronouns are she/her. How do you identify in terms of gender and sexual orientation? EB: I'm pansexual and identify as female, she/her. LR: So, out of curiosity, can you describe what pansexual is? EB: Pansexual means I could be attracted to any of the genders. It could be someone who's transgender, could be someone who's female, male, could be someone who is non-binary. For me, it's really about the people and took me a while to figure that out. LR: All right so it's not about gender it's about the person. OK, so let's just jump into when and where you were born. EB: Oh, 1989 July, in Salt Lake City, Utah. LR: OK, and what day in July? EB: 16th. LR: OK, did you grow up in Salt Lake? EB: I did, I grew up in Murray. LR: Let's just talk a little bit about your family dynamic, parents, siblings, and where you fall? 2 EB: Sure, I am the oldest of three girls. I have two younger sisters and my parents married in 1988 and are still married to this day. LR: That's cool. EB: Yeah, it's particularly cool because my dad is transitioning right now. LR: Okay, that is actually. All right so you actually have a very different perspective than most members of the LGBTQ+ community, having both sides, that's really fascinating. EB: I got one sister that's straight, and she's the weirdo in our family and knows it. LR: Well, all right that's not bad. So you're the oldest of three, where at in Murray did you grow up? EB: About 45th South and about 5th East. LR: OK, that just seems more like; it's not Midvale? EB: No, it's Murray, got turned into Murray about 1992, 1993 before that I think it was considered Millcreek. LR: Oh, all right. I was born in Salt Lake, but that just is weird, all right, Murray. EB: I grew up right next to auto row, so, where all those car dealerships are. LR: OK, so you're by the hospital then? You were raised by the old Cottonwood hospital. EB: Yeah, pretty close to there. LR: OK, so what are some of your earliest memories of growing up in Murray? EB: I know we lived in an apartment when I was really young. It was a little more down the road and I remember my sister being born, I think, as my earliest memories. She's almost two years younger than me. LR: Oh, wow, that is a young memory. 3 EB: It's a very young memory, I can remember her. It's very vague, I can remember her being brought home, and I can remember a little while after moving into the home we grew up in. LR: Okay, so you started off in apartments, then you said your parents bought a home? EB: Yep, I was about three or four and we moved into our home. Nice brick building down the way. That's where we grew up and where my parents are to this day. LR: OK, so where did you go to elementary school? EB: Moss Elementary School, James E. Moss was just down the street. LR: OK. And what are some of your fondest memories of elementary school or not even fondest just memories of elementary school? EB: Oh I remember Red Ribbon Week that was always a big deal at school, and I remember when my dad had to come to school because my sisters and I were being picked on because we grew up Native American. We had a sweat lodge in our backyard, and we weren't LDS, and so kids would tell us we were going to hell. My dad had a special day where he came to school and taught the entire school about Native American traditions and values. He did that for a couple of years, and it did stop a lot of the bullying. LR: OK, so is your father Native American? EB: He is. LR: OK, are you comfortable talking about that? EB: Yeah, so we have a nice mix of Arapaho and Choctaw and Lakota in our family, and we married into some Norwegians and Germans and my mother, her mother is from Scotland. Mix that all together and you get someone that looks like me. We mostly identify with the Lakota background. We ran a sweat lodge in our backyard. My dad’s a Heyoka and a medicine man. So we always had that when we were 4 growing up and we went to the Sundance in Rosebud, South Dakota, every year until about the time I started college. LR: So growing up and in a completely different culture than what is the predominant here in Utah, what was that like for you? EB: It was hard at times. I was very proud of my culture, but it always felt weird that I didn't quite get what everyone else was doing. My mother's family’s very LDS. The original Waltons in her family came out with Brigham Young as bodyguards and owned several properties. We have a stake president in the family, couple of Baptists, priests, and we have a few that went into other Catholic or Christian churches, but most of them stayed LDS on her side. It was a little odd to not be the same traditions as them. I knew them because they were all around me, but they weren't mine. So I can joke about funeral potatoes, I can joke about stake presidents, but it's not me. 5 I remember as a kid, I came home from, I think, kindergarten. We were sitting at the dinner table cause we always had a very open dinner table for talking. I asked, "Do I have to marry someone Lakota from the reservation?" My parents look at me like, where did this even come from? I explained, “Well, everyone at school says they're going to marry someone who's a Mormon. So do I have to marry someone who's Lakota?” My dad kind of laughed and said, "No, I'd prefer you didn't. Someone who lives on the reservation is pretty poor honey." LR: OK, that's pretty cool just having that conversation. So talk about what it was like being in elementary school, knowing you have these different cultures and just the environment of that. EB: Yeah, it was all around just because LDS culture is all around here. But because it was also part of my family's history, I just would adapt. If someone didn't ask specifically, I didn't walk into a room and say, “Oh, I'm different from all of you.” That was kind of how I treated everything, if you didn't ask, you didn't have to know. And if you asked, I wasn't going to lie. I started to get this idea of, I was not going to be ashamed. LR: Was that something that you just figured out on your own? EB: It was. LR: Do you remember how you came to that idea? EB: I think it was me trying to fit in with my friends and finding that some of them would still not quite accept the differences. They were friendly, they would still invite me to a lot of LDS events and things and there would be comments. I had a couple of cousins who were Baptists on my dad's side who come from the East Coast, and they came by when I was about eight or nine, I think. They were handing me crosses and telling me I need to pray. We didn't speak to them for several years and I really decided I didn't want to feel bad about something I was so proud of. I 6 didn't want to necessarily cause a ruckus or make anyone uncomfortable, but I wasn't going to hide it either. That was kind of my balance because I didn't want to be ashamed. But I didn't want to draw attention to myself, especially at that age. You're so awkward and you don't want people staring. So I didn't want to be seen as different but I didn't want to be ashamed. I think it was around eight, nine, ten when I really start to figure that out. LR: Okay, that makes sense. Is there any memory that stands out in elementary school that you want to share before we move on? EB: Well, probably one relevant for this. I think it was about when I was 10, when my dad took me out to lunch to talk about my aunt and uncle Robert, whose name changed to Roberta. She passed away at about 91, 92. I didn't necessarily know her. I was pretty young. Memories are very vague at that age, but no one ever talked to me about the fact that she transitioned to a female and moved to New York before I was born. It's not something the family talks about a lot even now. I remember him wanting to explain it to me, wanting me to know because he felt I was old enough to know about it, but not necessarily show up at my grandparents’ house and cause a ruckus. LR: That makes sense. Do you remember how you felt at that time when he was sharing that with you? EB: I remember feeling like it was the first time I'd ever heard of someone talking about someone transitioning to a new gender. I was curious, I wanted to know more, but I didn't know the questions to ask. I also kind of figured out pretty early this was kind of a taboo topic. This was one that I could not bring in front of grandma. This is one I could not talk to grandpa about. So I didn't ask a lot of the questions I wanted to, and some of them I didn't know to ask, but it was kind of like, “OK, so this is how it is, that's fine.” She passed from some complications from pneumonia. But she had 7 transitioned fully to female and was enjoying New York, as far as I know, before she passed. But she's buried under her male name and the family never talks about it. My parents do, my sisters do. I'm not even sure some of the family knows, to be honest. One of my very early memories at my grandmother's house was we had a picture of all the kids. She had five and I would point to them and go "Which one’s that?" "That's your Uncle Richard." "OK, which one's that?" "That's Scott." "Well, which one’s that?" "That's Richard." I count three boys and my little brain was trying to make sense of, they can't all be Richard and Scott. Who's this one? And I couldn't make sense of it because I was little and trying to figure out. Eventually I think I gave up and just decided “OK, they’re Richard and Scott.” She never talked about Roberta. I don't know if it was the loss or if it was the struggle with her transition, maybe both. She was in poor health, and I never had the nerve to push it with her. LR: That's interesting. Why do you think that your dad felt the need to share that with you and be open with you about that? EB: Well, at the time we were just very close and we always have been. I think it was at a point where we didn't want to keep it secret. I'd always known that I had an Uncle Robert. We had her art in the house, and I knew my mother talked about it, but also as a him never her. I think my mother might have even asked at one point for him to discuss with me. That was Dad’s prerogative, my mother didn't like hard topics. I 8 was the oldest and I think he just felt it was time. He never mentioned any of the reason why. LR: That makes sense. So you said you were about ten. Did that change the way you looked at people or the world? EB: I don't think it was like a big boom, but it was like, “OK, so people can change their gender. People could be something different. OK.” That was now new information that I kind of just knew. But I don't remember encountering it a lot, at least not at that age. I didn't encounter it a lot more till later and then it was like “Oh yeah that's normal.” LR: So right around age 10 was the Columbine shooting. And what's interesting is it's not something that really has much meaning to the older generation. But you were in school here. EB: Yeah, I was about in fifth grade. LR: What are your memories about that and how did that affect you and your perception of school? EB: It did make you wonder about my safety at school. My dad was a gun owner and I'd always been around guns and knew safety around guns. That was a big rule in our house. I remember people arguing about having guns in school and whether a teacher should be armed, and I remember wondering about that, would I feel safe with my teacher who was a bit clumsy with a gun, and decided I really didn't like that idea. It did make me a little more suspicious but didn't necessarily make me afraid of school. That didn't come until September 11th. I very much remember that time. The Terri Schiavo case happened around that same time, and there was a shooting at a Native American school, Navajo I think, around the same time, and several kids were killed. I was very angry, and I remember writing a paper in school that everyone was talking about Terri Schiavo and not about this horrible school 9 shooting. I remember thinking, “Is this because they're native? Is it because this is more important? I don't like this.” It was a time I really started questioning what do we see as important in the world, and about people who are maybe not taking this seriously because of who they are. LR: So you mentioned the Terri Schiavo case. Can you expand on that? EB: Sure, I don't remember all the details, but I remember that she was in a coma and had been for a long time, and I believe they declared her legally brain dead. There was debate, huge debate, because the parents want her to stay on and the husband wants to take her off. I swear it even went to the Supreme Court to decide who got to make that call. I do remember they pulled the plug and I remember everyone had strong opinions, was very upset and I was just sitting there looking at this other case going, "Why, why do we care about this one person who's already dead? Why don't we care about these little kids that were shot?" LR: OK, that puts it into perspective a bit, thank you. All right, so let's see. So were you in junior high during 9/11? EB: I was. I just started junior high. LR: So let's move into junior high. Where did you go to junior high? EB: Granite Park. LR: OK, and so literally that was like, you'd only been going to junior high for a couple of weeks when 9/11 happened. EB: Yeah. Not very long at all. LR: Let’s talk about that and your experience with that and your feelings around that. EB: Well, mom dropped me off at school and I remember the news talked about something but I didn't pay attention even though it interrupted the music. My first class was normal. Everything felt tense, but there's nothing weird. It was only when 10 I got to my second period that I realized all the TVs were on in the classroom that we use for the news broadcasts. Those shouldn't be on, even though they were all fuzzy because they didn't quite work well if it wasn't during the student news hour. Everyone was hushed and the adults were talking in groups and us kids were trying to make sense of what was even going on. I think it was in second period where I finally had my math teacher explain what actually happened. That was the weirdest day at junior high we ever had. Everyone was so quiet, no one misbehaved. It was the first time since school started we didn't have a stink bomb go off in the lunchroom, cause we'd have one every day since school started. We talked in whispers. We didn't get almost any schoolwork done. I remember a helicopter, I think it was, went over the school building to probably go to a local hospital. We all ducked down and covered our heads, we couldn't help it. We talked about whether we're going to go to war, drafts, all kinds of things that we were just trying to make sense of. I think it was the first time I ever really felt scared of the world at large and felt like someone could hurt me for something I didn't do. LR: Were the teachers trying to help you guys through that? EB: I think as best they could, they were pretty in shock too. They didn't make us do a lot of schoolwork that day. They weren't pressuring us. They gave us opportunities to talk to each other and them. I don't think they knew how to help. Looking back on it with the therapist eyes, I think they were in shock and were trying to facilitate discussion but didn't know how. A lot of them would mention things like the Kennedy assassination and their own time with that. I think I had three teachers mention that. But we're kids we're going, “That's like ancient history. Why are we discussing that? Is the president next, what does this mean?” We didn't know what to think. But I was really grateful they were peaceful with us that day. They didn't get 11 mad at us for not doing our work or not being focused. They were just very, “Let's just get through the day.” LR: How long do you think it took to get back to a sense of “Okay we can do our schoolwork again?” EB: We were doing schoolwork, I think pretty close to the next day or the day after that, but it was less pressured, I think, for another week before we really were pushing rules. I think the stink bombs didn't start for another two weeks again. And right after that we were getting ready for the Olympics. So security was tight around school. We couldn't decide how much of that was Olympics and how much of that was 9/11. So I don't know that it really felt normal again until the Olympics were over. LR: OK, that makes sense. You mentioned the Olympics, you were right there, almost. There's that one venue that's really close to where you lived. Talk about what that was like for you. EB: It was exciting to see so many people from so many different places. My grandparents, my paternal grandparents, both worked with the Olympics. They did security stuff and gopher kind of stuff, and we went to see the opening ceremony preview. So the kind of dress rehearsal. I went to a hockey game, and I think I went to one other thing and I can't remember what. I think my sister went to the closing ceremony and we were constantly in Olympic Village. It was just so exciting and fun, and there were so many things to see. My youngest sister, she's dyed her hair now, but she always was the blond in the family, very blond hair like my mother. We would go to the Nagasaki area and people would pet her hair and give her all kinds of free stuff. She would constantly want to go back to the Olympic Village and particularly to the Nagasaki area because all these free things and they all want to touch your hair like she was some sort of lucky object. LR: That's funny. 12 EB: I think it gave her a big head because she was always that little cute one that got things. LR: Were you able to go to any of the actual events? EB: I went to a hockey game between Belarus and someone else. LR: So how did that affect your everyday life? You know, going to school, did that change any of that? EB: Oh, change security stuff almost everywhere. School required us to carry our little name badges at all times, and we had to have backpack checks and weird things like that. But now that I'm getting older, that's normal for junior high, it probably wasn't that different with the Olympics. I know that we had something to talk about and something to do that we didn't usually, and that all made it exciting. I assume it's like when there's a fair or something in town. Everyone was talking about it, everyone was part of it, and we'll start with the next event. It was just like something exciting going on. LR: That's an interesting way to be in junior high having that event. So besides 9/11 and the Olympics, what are some other memories you have of junior high that stand out? EB: Well, I had crushes and even dated a little in elementary. Junior high is where it really upped the ante. I had some guys I was really into. It was the first time I'd ever run into someone at school that was openly bisexual, was a girl in my class. Lovely girl. I didn't think much of it, but it was new, it was different. I'd never had another kid in my class be open about that, and kids were being more themselves in a lot of ways, dyeing their hair, wearing goth clothes. So it was exciting in that way. I was very much, as far as what we label them, prep. I wore the nice clothes. I got mistaken for a substitute teacher once. I was one of the few kids that actually wore the school uniform, everyone else opted out. Eventually, I just gave up on it 13 because no one else is wearing it. Nothing like a kid in khaki skirt, nice clogs and a polo to make you look like you don't belong there, and Granite Park was kind of a rough school, so I really didn't fit in well. I remember that was the first time I started to guess that maybe I liked girls and I was looking at books on it because my parents were very open about any topic and there were plenty of books on that topic, but a lot of them weren't very good. A lot of them would say things like “It's very common for girls to look at each other and compare themselves,” doesn't necessarily mean you're attracted. I'm like, "Is that what I'm doing? Am I just comparing?" Because at that point I developed quite a bit faster than anyone else in my class. So I was like "I must be comparing, maybe not into girls. Maybe I am." I remember I brought it up to my parents. They were like, "You may take a while to figure it out. It's OK, we got your back either way." They were very cool and easy going about it. I think they were trying so hard not to push me one way or the other. Dad has a background, a Ph.D. with psychology computers. Mom's a librarian. Library Science Master's degree, and she runs circulation for Salt Lake City Public. So both very educated backgrounds and I think particularly with their eldest child, they tried so hard to do everything perfectly. Just wasn't like a big boom. It was like, I don't know what this is, I'll explore it. I know that by the end of junior high, there was a girl I definitely had a big crush on, and I started to get it down to the idea that, OK, I don't know if it's just this girl or four girls, but this isn't just comparing. And that's about the time I started high school. LR: OK, where did you go to high school? EB: Granite High. LR: OK, the old one or the new one? EB: The old one, the one that's now rubble, being turned into something else. 14 LR: That's the one that's on... EB: 5th and 33rd, I think. LR: Yeah, yeah, right okay. EB: Really old school. My ancestors went there and my great great aunt was killed just outside that school in a car accident many years ago. Early 1900s. LR: So as you started high school, did this girl go with you to Granite? EB: We were good friends, yeah. LR: Did she ever know that you had a crush on her? EB: I don't think so, she might have guessed, but I really knew very clearly she was straight. It was one of those hard times of, I know she’s straight. This isn't going anywhere, but I really like her, so I never said a thing about it. LR: Okay. Do you think she picked up on that, though? EB: I wonder sometimes, but I think we have both had so much going on. I don't think we ever paid much attention to it, and I only was up at high school for two years. I started Weber State at 16. LR: There's a story there. So did you graduate high school? EB: I did not fit in high school and struggled. My dad had started college at 15, so I decided since I hated high school, why not start college early like he did? He kind of fought me on it in freshman year. “It's just a rough year, you're having trouble with your friends, this will get better. You don't need to move to college yet." And then next year, when things don't get better, and he figured out that I was going to be done the next year anyways, at the rate I was going with my grades, everything else, he relented. And so I joined the early college program and applied and turned 16 just before I started here. LR: OK, so do you remember, and I forgot to mention this. If I ask a question, you're not comfortable answering just that is fine just let me know. 15 EB: Absolutely. LR: Do you remember what the struggle was? EB: Oh yes. I had a big chip on my shoulder, and I would do things like mock people for how they were, the cliques and the behavior. I still do it now when I work with kids. The idea that, “Oh, this band is cool this week, next week, they're posers.” I would scoff, "You're in a band, why don't you read a book." I was very full of myself and there were some troubles in my friend group. There was a girl a little older than me, but same grade, who will sleep with a guy that was a lot older and we knew about it. I reported it, and on one occasion she came to my house to do a school project and left without telling my parents or me with the older gentleman. My dad did call the cops on them because this guy was 19 and she was about 15. But this made me very much a pariah at school, that I called the cops on somebody, that I didn't go along with this girl who had some very popular friends that were older seniors and they were also on the newspaper crew with me. I remember they would cause me trouble deliberately. They would pick on me in the lunchroom, sit next to me and talk about me loudly, tripped me. So I started avoiding the lunchroom. They got involved in the literary magazine, which was my baby, and they would throw out things saying they were inappropriate and put in things that were. I had to constantly pull my teacher into it to say "This is absolutely appropriate; they just don't like the person who wrote it. This isn't, this should be out." Thing was a disaster. They got theirs though, last week of school, it's a tradition for the freshmen to go to Lagoon, so I had everything set with the literary magazine and my teacher would be gone. They snuck out to get their hair done at the hair salon instead of working on finishing up the magazine and getting it out. So she flunked them both and they lost their scholarships for college. I do love karma. But the bullying was really rough and I had trouble making friends anyways. 16 The only friend I had, I had one really good friend I had the crush on, and the other one was a very Molly Mormon girl. I've known her since junior high. She would criticize if I talked to her about ever whacking my sister. She never hit her sister. It's like, what sister doesn't hit her sister? I remember one day she came up to me upset and said, "You never told me." "Told you what?" "Elton John's gay." "You didn't know, you're gonna have to give me a list of things I need to inform you of then." She would tell me that people that watch The Simpsons or Shrek and find it funny were unintelligent, all kinds of things. But I was young and shy, so I put up with it. Not the healthiest of friendships. I was always nervous around going to the seminary based on being younger and struggling to fit in, but that's where she liked to be at lunch because it was cleaner. Starting college early got me away from a lot of that. But overall, high school was not a great experience. LR: It's interesting, because your parents taught you to be proud of yourself and who you are and to be mindful of others, and you were able to look at this individual who was acting out in a negative way to try to protect her. Do you think that is because of the environment you were raised in? EB: I think so. I mean, I grew up with a very strict moral code and understanding rules, and as upset as I was to have troubles at school because of what we had done, I mean, I didn't call the cops< Dad had, but I did feel that that wasn't OK. It was against the law, she was 15 and he was 19. I didn't feel that was healthy or OK, and I did feel that someone should help her. She didn't see it that way. Now that I'm a little older I see that. But I also see the other side of it, especially now, I’m like, 17 "Wow, you were not old enough to be doing that." I thought I might have been old enough at that age, and I definitely wasn't. LR: All right, that makes sense. So I can't imagine being 16 and going to college. So did you live on campus or did you live at home? EB: No, so dad agreed to allow me to start college early on a couple of conditions. One, I live at home. Two, no employment until I was 18, he wanted me, at least in the first two years, focused on school. He and mom would pay for school and they would help me pay for food, gas and things like that. He also insisted it would be Weber. At the time he was the CTO for Ogden City, so he commuted up here every morning. So I'd have a ride and I was learning to drive so soon I'd be able to drive myself if I needed to. He knew that early college program, he knew the people at Weber, so he felt it would be a safe place for me. I had to turn in my grades to them just like I would in high school, but otherwise I'd be treated like an adult. Part of trying it out was I took my ACT up here and Dad had worked so hard to hang out on campus for several hours afterwards. I ran into all kinds of college kids, and I felt like this was right. No one's making fun of me for caring about my grades or starting college early. No one's asking me stupid questions about what bands I'm into. Everyone just treats me like a human being. I kind of like this. So college was very exciting. Last thing I did before I graduated high school, that kind of help me push that way, I was part of the Hugh O'Brian Youth Program, which was really cool. I was the one nominated for my school and I met all these people that were like me, that cared about school and grades and had big dreams. Most people at Granite High didn't. It was kind of a poor school, and a lot of people just, you know, they weren't shooting for much. They were all talking about getting out of Utah as soon as possible and making lots of money and not having realistic plans. These guys did, 18 they were all going to be doctors, lawyers. They had picked what colleges they would go to. They were like me, and that made me feel secure that, yeah, college is the place for me. Now, with Utah laws, I of course, had to still attend high school at the same time. So I had to turn in my grades every quarter to the high school because you can't have a college degree without a high school degree in the state of Utah. Which dad knew since he'd gone through the same thing when he was teaching at the U. He had to take a class at the U because he hadn't finished high school, which is ridiculous. LR: So I know how they run the early college program at NUAMES High School. So how did that work for you? EB: So pretty much every day I went to school and took my classes, and then once a quarter, I would show up at high school, meet with one of the advisors and turn in my grades and make sure they all got translated to high school. I was taking the classes I need for high school and I was taking the classes I need for college. There was an advisor on campus for the early college that helped me manage that. I knew a lot of the NUAMES kids, but I was not one of them. I know my first year we did the program, I don't remember what it was called, but where they start you off with three classes where you have the same students and same schedule. That did help. That helped me adjust from high school to college. Having the same faces and sharing the same classes with the same people next year wasn't too hard. I did make some mistakes with classes. At the time I planned to go into medicine, really was passionate about it. I have amazing interest in science and medicine and helping people. I took my first medical class I probably should've waited longer to take. It was anatomy, physiology, I think they call it bio-something, bio-core here. I passed by the skin of my teeth; I was still 16. I really had no business taking that class. But I still passed, and it was, I think, sophomore year that I figured out, 'Well, I don't want 19 to be a medicine, I want to do something else." And really found my love in being a therapist, being a social worker. LR: So did you decide then when you were 17, what your major was going to be? EB: Yup. LR: That's a little mind blowing to me. EB: I mean, I would have been almost 18, but yeah. I been so married to medicine for so long, and I remember I was downstairs working on an assignment. I was watching my class and we're supposed to be reading about, Oh, what was her name? Famous case of a gal who infected a bunch of people, Typhoid Mary. And I wasn't reading about the typhoid. I was like, "OK, did no one teach her a different job she could do or talk to her about how she spreads this. Did no one do that." I couldn't find the answers in my medical textbooks. So I started looking elsewhere. Finally, a couple of hours go by. It's like, “OK, this is medical school, this is medical class, you should be reading about typhoid, not what they did with Typhoid Mary. You just wasted a couple of hours.” That was really the clicking of, Oh, maybe this isn't what I want to do the rest of my life. And I explored a lot of different careers for, I think, a semester or two. My mother and a few others had said, "You know, you're a really good listener, you love to talk to people, maybe be a therapist." I was like, “I don't like therapists.” A couple of therapist I've seen I didn't like. It was fluffy, it was boring and I don't want to do that. I was a difficult client. There's karma there. But I start taking some classes and it just fit with everything I thought and believed and a lot of the medical stuff I knew fit in. Once I started it just all fell into place. I graduated at 20, and that would have been in 2009 with my Bachelor’s in Social Work. 20 LR: Awesome, awesome. So while you're still a teenager going to college, cause typically when you're in high school, it's when you really start to date and explore. Was it different for you being on a college campus? EB: It was because I wasn't going to hide my age. There were a lot of early college kids that do. They make out like they're 19, 20. I kind of want that same philosophy, I don't want to be ashamed of this. It's cool that I'm 16 in college. Why should I be ashamed, make a big deal of it, be a jerk. But it did make dating tricky because if it was someone that didn't care that you were 16, that's concerning. If there's someone that really likes that you're 16, that's also concerning. So dating was a little tricky. A lot of my first dates were not the best picks. They were geeky guys that were kind of clueless and not so great. But I was happy to be dating and they were older. They were 18, 19 or 20. I found a few girls that I was really into. But I was so afraid of asking a girl out on campus being how young I was, and the one I asked, though, made it clear that she was with somebody and that kind of put me off of asking girls out for a little while because I was super mortified. But I was starting to get more open about what I considered bisexual. I found friends that were supportive. My best friend, who I made in college, I wasn't so sure at the time, but we didn't really discuss till later. She was a good Mormon girl, but not a Molly Mormon. And I just never brought it up with her. I saw no reason to tell her who I was dating. I knew who she was dating because she was always dating somebody, trying very hard to nail that person she could marry. I didn't bring it up with her until a few years ago. LR: OK, let's see, so you're 20 when you graduate? What was next? EB: Well, unfortunately, it was a really bad economy in ‘09, and I couldn't find a lot of jobs. I was pretty sure it was time just to go into a Master's program. I'd missed the deadline to apply to the U because you had to apply a year in advance 21 and everyone told me they kept raising the GPA requirements. I didn't stand a chance. I know now I would've made it in fine. But so I started applying out of state. At the time, Utah State wasn't accredited and Weber State didn't have a Master's program. So I applied all over the country, and my biggest requirement was if they require the GRE I'm not going because I didn't want to take any more tests. I just passed my first licensure exam. I was like, I don't want any more tests. Social work licensure exams are brutal, so many trick questions. One of the schools that accept me was University of South Carolina with in-state tuition, as long as I agreed to be a graduate assistant one day a week. I kind of said, "Sold.” Didn't know anybody out there, but I figured that it could be a good adventure and I would know someplace different than Utah, and it was very different from Utah. You don't see too many black people in Utah, and South Carolina on the other hand, almost everyone's black. So it's a really great experience for growing culturally and as a person and living on my own. I had a little bit of money from the school and I was just making do. The South is cheaper than here. My parents had been treatin’ me like an adult for years, so we checked in with each other by phone every week. I checked in with my grandparents every week, but they didn't have to send me money or take care of me. I kind of just knew what I was doing. If I didn't, I called. LR: Okay, you mentioned that culturally, it was very different. Will you talk about that a little bit? EB: Very Baptist, very Baptist in the South, it is the Bible belt and a lot of AME churches. Very black. It's not here. I got used to white and a lot of Mexican and Latina. There you almost ran into no one that was Latina, that was kind of rare. But a lot of people that were black, some of which would tell you, "I'm not black, I'm Jamaican.” 22 “I'm not black, I'm Dominican Republic." "I'm not African-American, never been to Africa, I'm black." And get to know those nuances, especially as a therapist and how to navigate that and so much good food. I gained so much weight in the south. LR: What was your favorite food there that was different from what you grew up with? EB: Probably banana pudding because I had lots of good barbecue growing up. My dad was from Virginia, but I was never a pudding person. So someone made me this dish of yellow pudding with banana slices, vanilla wafers and whipped cream. And I'm like, banana, yucky. I took a bite of it and I'm like, "Oh my god, I love this, I want to eat this all the time." It's really more vanilla-y than banana-y. And pecan pie, there was this one place that would mix their pecan pie with butterscotch chips or chocolate chips, depending on what you asked for. Mm-hmm. So much good barbecue and wings, never got into okra. Still don't like grits, no matter who makes them. LR: So were you in that program for two years? EB: Yep, I could have got one year if I applied a little earlier and gotten that advanced standing. But right as I finished my Bachelor’s, I kind of fell apart. I ran myself too ragged and I got really sick. I had been doing my full time classwork, I had been doing my internship 16 hours a week. I worked a part time job and a full time job. A lot of that time is a blur. I got the sniffles and I just didn't stop, I just kept going. I was so determined to just be done with this. And so January I came down with walking pneumonia and some kidney failure from just not taking care of myself as a student, which permanently shaped my very strong stance on self care. LR: So that was 2009 or ‘10? EB: The end of 2009, beginning of 2010, so I missed the deadline to apply for advanced standing. 23 LR: OK, so you started your Master's program in 2010 or 11? EB: 2010 fall. LR: OK, so in 2012 you had your Master's degree? EB: Yup, I had my Master's degree. The economy still wasn't great, but I now had a Master's degree, which meant I could do almost anything. I needed at least two years to get my full clinical licensure. And like a lot of master's students, I was applying for every job I could find, and we weren't hearing anything. You're always being asked, "Did you find anything yet? Where are you going to work, what are you doing after school?" The few people you knew who did, you want to know, “How did you get that?” Looking back on it and being wiser, it's “Oh, no one looked at your stuff because you didn't have the degree done yet,” but it made a lot of us desperate. LR: Yeah I bet. EB: A lot of us are expanding where we were applying, and I had expanded pretty wide by that point because I was sending, I think, five resumes a month. I really wanted to have a job lined up. One of the places I interviewed for was in Alaska, and I was a little naive. I didn't look into it as much as I should have, but I got this job in Wrangell, Alaska, a little itty bitty island town in the southeast. When they said, 40,000 I was like, “Oh, that's so much that's more than most my friends make.” Yeah, but that's low for Alaska and well, it's a little town, but there's an airport and oh there's stores, this will be fine. Three years of no delivered pizza and no Wal- Mart stores closing at six. You miss civilization after a while. So I worked in Wrangell, and I also was the person who would go to Prince of Wales Island to work in the villages once a month. So I'd travel by float planes and jet boats and go over to a village of 30 to 150 people and work there for a week and then come back. LR: That's fascinating. 24 EB: It was amazing. I learned all kinds of things about necessities versus wants, I learned how to be a little more rugged, I joined a roller derby team because what else do you do in Alaska for fun? Even though I'm very much not an athlete. I got to know what it was like to live with 2,000 people on the same island and see them all day long and treat them as a therapist. I ran a community tobacco grant program and was a care coordinator. LR: That's interesting. So going back to South Carolina as you're there, was it easier outside of Utah to explore your sexuality and who you were? EB: Yes, I did feel a lot easier because I didn't feel like I would run into anyone who I had to answer to. I knew my parents had my back. I'm pretty confident my grandparents would, but I worried about running into my friends from high school. I worried about being judged. Utah was in a place where you could just run into people. I don't even remember how old I was when I first figured out we had gay bars in Utah. They were easy to find in South Carolina. I got hit on all the time, mostly by guys, but sometimes by girls, and it was just easier to date. Everyone just kind of knew I was an adult, I felt more like an adult than I had here. So I didn't feel weird about dating someone that was 20 or 25. Yeah, it was a little easier. LR: So you said you were on Wrangell for three years? Was there a contract that you signed that you would be there for three years? EB: No. Social workers, when you get your Master's, you're an LMSW, so your License Master Social Worker. But that means someone has to sign off all your paperwork and clear you to do things. You have to be under someone that has a full licensure. Now, if you work under someone with their full licensure for two years, then you can apply and take the test for your LC and then you can pretty much go anywhere. So I had to stick through for two years and unfortunately, the clinical supervisor there had a reputation from some of the other people they had worked with that if you left 25 before that two years, good luck getting her to sign off what hours you did. So I had to finish and I had to save up enough money to leave. Alaska’s really expensive to move to and from. I had to find another job. I knew that I wanted out of there because the job was a little toxic and underpaying, and I did miss civilization around the two year mark. But it would be another year before I had enough money, had my license done and knew that everything was set with a job so that I could leave. LR: Okay, so as you're going to these smaller little islands, and I'm assuming that you're working more with the native population? EB: Yep. LR: I hope I'm saying that right? EB: You are, Alaska Natives. LR: How did that, and being part native yourself, being raised with that culture. Do you think that helped you interact with them a little better and understand them? EB: I think it did because I did understand the culture, but also helped me do a lot of compare and contrast. Rosebud Reservation is poor. You go to the Indian health service anywhere in the lower 48, and most people say, "Oh, you're going to die there" and they mean it, it's rough. Alaska's not like that, they got in the game much later. So they get a lot more government money. They run their own hospitals and have their heads a little taller and a little more pride, and they're more open about the culture than I had ever seen, even Ute and Navajos down here. When there was a native celebration, our offices closed, which I had never seen anywhere else. It was just the norm. It was very common for people to talk Tlingit and Haida, just an everyday conversation. The preschool taught all the kids, I want to say Tlingit. I thought a little Haida, but everybody didn't matter what your race was. That was different. In Utah I'd never seen any of that. And even now, if I say put beads in my hair or put one of my feathers in, someone would say something, and up there 26 when I would be honest about, well, this is my background, they were just, “Oh, welcome, come, come, come,” because there were so many people that were white-skinned and native up there. Here I didn't always fit in with other native kids if they weren't Lakota because I was very white, and I could sometimes be accused of cultural appropriation for wearing something that was mine that I'd had all my life. They didn't care up there if I wore a ribbon dress. "Oh, that's gorgeous. Let me show you my button shawl. "It was different, but that was also where I was hiding my sexuality and a lot of my individuality. Cause an itty bitty island, 2,000 people knew stuff before you even knew it yourself, had to practically go in a closet to make your own decision. People would say things like, "Oh, you know, your car registration’s about to expire." "How do you know what car I drive?" So I didn't really date a lot locally. What I would sometimes do when I had conferences in Anchorage is I would do hook-ups because it would be someone I didn't know and had no connections with anyone in town, and it wouldn't come back to anybody because there was a lot of that small town judgment. I would say Alaska's very lovely, small towns are small towns. There were grudges held sometimes for 20, 30 years over dumb crap, and everyone had opinions on everyone’s stuff. So I didn't feel like I hid anything, but I was way less open then I had ever been before. I definitely didn't like that, but I didn't want to be thought of as the gay therapist. I didn't want that rap. I wanted to figure out my career and who I was, and I didn't want any pressure or preconceived notions. It was hard enough being a new therapist and being so young compared to everyone else that was there. LR: So sounds like for the first time in your life, you actually had to hide who you were. 27 EB: Yes, a lot. I was more careful about cussing, I was more careful about what I wore. I didn't care much when I went to college. You know, “Is this shirt offensive in Alaska, should I wear that here?” I mean, even joining roller derby, which is not exactly mainstream, I was still that might be where I might wear my more offensive shirts. But I was just very careful about everything I said and everything I did because it would come back. I remember I had a patient of all things who had issues with anger, who said, "Well, I don't see why we got to talk about me hitting walls and people if you can hit people on skates." What's that got to do with anything? But your personal stuff would come up in sessions. They knew about it. You know, their personal stuff, I hated it. LR: That makes sense. All right. So when you leave Alaska, it's 2000... EB: About 2015, I think. LR: Okay, and where did you go from there? EB: Casper, Wyoming, there was a job opening and it was closer to home, but not so close. You couldn’t just pop in without warning. At least that's my theory. LR: Okay, well it's still a small town. EB: Still a small town, but easier to get to other places, so it wasn't as hard to go other places. Dating was harder. I was now out of Alaska, but now I've gotten in the habit of not dating and doing more hookups. I dated a little and I wasn't open with my coworkers about my sexuality. We had a manager who was very open about being gay, and I don't think she had a partner at the time. But a lot of conservatism in Casper. I mean, Salt Lake, even though it's in Utah, is not conservative. So I was a little concerned about where that went, especially since I had finally worked in an area where I really want to work, which was with children. And children are still very much a passion of mine. A lot of my background is in developmental disabilities, and so I was working in the intensive children's department. I was very afraid. “What 28 if I'm open and someone thinks that I'm a danger to the kid? What if I lose my job over this,” which had never been a worry before. Even Alaska I wasn't worried about that. And so I was very careful about what I said about my dating and didn't even talk to people about who I was dating. I just did not want any of that crap. And had a lot of kids I helped, including some that had some serious sexual abuse, because intensive children's services does that kind of work. Worked with a lot of kids with intense disabilities and was really good at it. I remember there was one dad that went on this long homophobic rant, and I just wanted to put him in his place. But I knew if I did, what good would it do? This kid would just not get the services he needed. It's hard enough to get him in in the first place. LR: How long were you in Casper? EB: Four years, 2019 was when I came back to Utah. LR: So it's interesting that growing up in a very conservative sheltered environment, you're able to be more open to moving out of that. You were... EB: I closed up. LR: You closed up. EB: Yup, I was open in South Carolina, but then Alaska and Wyoming I closed up. I sometimes wonder myself, “Why are you being so scared about this?” I list the reasons why. “You don't know what's gonna happen at work if you are open about yourself, you don't know if you can be open with these conservative people you work with. You don't know if it’s gonna come back, still small town.” I dated, I did a little bit of hooking up and I enjoyed it and it was men and women, but I just never shared it at work. What I tell myself is work is work, it doesn't have to do with anything in my personal life. LR: So were you a licensed therapist at this time? EB: Yup, by this time I had my LCSW fully licensed. No one needed to supervise or sign 29 anything. I'd go anywhere I wanted. LR: OK, that's pretty cool. Do you have any interesting memories of your time in Casper that just stands out? EB: Oh, Casper was just amazing, I loved going out every weekend. Just like in South Carolina, I would pick places on the map and just drive because they were close by. I love exploring new places. I went all over the south and all over the Black Hills, all over Colorado. Those were also places where I could be a little more open. Did not worry about running into a patient. I remember in Casper, it was a small enough town that I would do my grocery shopping first thing in the morning just to avoid running into clients. I'd run into other therapists and DCFS workers doing the same thing. I remember going to Pride in Casper, it was small. And I remember when I'd have clients that would talk about coming out, then I'd be open. I would say, “Here's where I'm at, here's who I am.” And that's also when I started to come around to the idea of, “I don't think I'm bi, I think I'm pansexual.” I noticed that I was attracted to people that were agender or trans. And I was like, "Well, where does this fit in? Well, this kind of covers my umbrella a little better." But also when I would try to explain to people that I was pansexual, they'd go "Pan a what now?" And so I’d just go "Bi." "That I get." And there's just this explosion of that anyways. I was in high school when California passed their Gay Marriage Act that didn't work out. And I remember that was so new and we didn't know what was going to happen. I never thought that was gonna happen in my lifetime. And so I was able to find a happy little medium in my personal life versus my work life. LR: So speaking of the Marriage Equality Act, I think 2015. Do you remember what that 30 meant for you? EB: To me, it meant legitimacy. Because everyone's so dismissive when you're just dating someone. Even now, even if I had been with someone for six, seven years. "Oh, that's your husband?" "No, that's my partner." And people will judge that, particularly in Utah, because we have such strong feelings about marriage. And so, to me, it felt like I could meet someone that's not a guy and marry them, and it would be accepted as legitimate, legal, real. It doesn't have to be, "Oh, it's a phase." And I like that, I like that a lot. LR: That makes sense. So you move back to Utah in 2019. EB: Yeah, fall. LR: And did you move to Ogden, or back to Murray? EB: I moved to Ogden. LR: So what drew you to Ogden? EB: Well, things got really bad at the job I was at, they're falling apart still. The agency was not treating their staff very well, and they kept getting worse and worse, and I was driving every other weekend to Ogden to help take care of my grandparents. Their health was declining and I spent a lot of time with them because they lived in Ogden. So when I was in college, if I needed food or a place to crash or just a vehicle when I didn't have one, I spent all my time there. I talked to them every week by phone once I moved out of Utah. But now their health was going down. So every other weekend, I'd finished work at five and I'd drive all night, get to Salt Lake, collapse at my parents house and sleep, get better in the morning, spend the morning with them, grocery shopping, checking on things, taking them out to lunches. Then the afternoon I'd spend with my best friend who lived in Ogden at the time and had two little girls. And then late in the evening I'd drive home, sleep, get 31 up the next morning, have breakfast with my folks, maybe do something with them, and then by lunch, drive back to Casper and be at work the next morning by nine. I was doing that twice a month and it was wearing me down. And so when I started looking for other jobs, when one came up in Ogden and it looked too good to be true. I was like, "This is the right location. This looks like good work that I'm proud of. Let's do this." And so I moved here, quit my job in Casper and found a place just down the street from my grandparents. LR: OK, where in Ogden do you reside now? EB: South Ogden, so the apartment complex that they built right at the top of the hill as you go down 89, towards the mouth of the canyon by the Chevron. LR: So you've been here now for two years? EB: Yeah, two years. LR: What we haven't really talked much about is the pandemic. As you were settling into your job, boom, the pandemic hit. How did that change the way you did therapy? EB: It changed everything. And it was really poor timing. So I got settled here and I was really excited back in Utah, and it wasn't in Murray. I was in Ogden and I was like, I'm going to just be me, and I'm just going to enjoy, and I work this job that's not as stressful as my previous jobs or intense, and I was spending every week at my grandparents taking care of things, just getting settled. And then December, Grandpa had a couple falls, but December he fell and broke his neck the day after Christmas. He survived, but it really did some damage. And so I was now over there constantly, and I was constantly having to call because Grandma didn't even call when he broke his neck. I had aunts in Virginia wanting explanations and wanting to come out here, and she didn't want that. Dad had never particularly gotten along with his father, so he was trying to help as best he could. And my sisters didn't like my grandfather because of how he treated my dad. Even though I'm the apple of 32 both their eye, oddly enough, they don't get along. So it was a really busy, crazy time. I went on a trip to Tennessee the week before the pandemic really became a thing. I had a wonderful time in Tennessee. My aunts had come out to take care of Grandma and Grandpa while I was gone, so I didn't have to worry. He got the brace off and then Grandma’s health just tail-spinned. And she was gone, I think, a week later, which I hadn't planned on. LR: Wow. EB: And then we had the earthquake the next day, and I was planning to come back to work because I didn't want to be around the house. And I said to my boss, "I think I've got to take another day. I need to make sure that Grandpa's okay, and that my aunts and cousins, who are not from here, have never been through an earthquake, because I'd been through several in Alaska. I need to make sure everyone there is OK, and he said, "Yup take the day." So I worked from home that day and I kept checking on them. Almost none of my clients showed up that day. We'd already switched to doing things by video and phone. We hadn’t decided to work from home yet. We worked video at home in the office for a couple of weeks, and then the decision was made to have us all work from home. We worked from home for about five or six weeks. And it was different. Therapy’s tricky on video. I'd done a lot of it in Alaska because that's how I sometimes kept in touch with some of my more remote people. But it was different to do it this way, and a lot of clients struggle to adjust to it and just dealing with intense upset and grief that everyone's feeling when you're feeling the same. I took disaster mitigation in my grad program. I studied a lot of trauma and stuff. Nothing ever prepared us for this. We're used to this idea of, “OK, if the city of Ogden has a tragedy, we would get therapists from Salt Lake. We would get therapists from Colorado so that they’re removed from the situation, they're not affected.” There was no way to do that here. 33 And I needed to keep busy because I was driving myself crazy as is, but I was mired in my own grief, and I had kind of thought, "Well, as I get Grandma and Grandpa settled, I'll start making new friends and doing new things." And now that was all [hand wave]. So I just had the best friend I had for all these years, my family, and that was kind of it. That was really tricky and everyone was upset. Everyone was struggling once it hit June, when we went back to the office, we were booked, at a minimum, a month out from then on. That's not changed, we've never been able to get it to slow down, and it's everything. It's not just the pandemic, its officers and their families that were affected by the protests and people of color that were affected by the protests. It's people who increased their substance use while they were stuck at home. And because we're free, since we're an EAP, we're the first one everyone goes to. And I have clients that get really mad, "Well, you need to see me every two weeks. Why? Why can't you do that?" I'm like, "Which patient do you want me to move? Who are you more important than?" We made priority spots for doctors and first responders. I couldn't just give those away willy nilly. And trying to soothe a Chief of Medicine, Infections Nurse, it's hard. Soothing a cop and a firefighter, I’ve gotten good at it, most of our staff have, but it's hard. And it's really hard when someone is sometimes whining about something that's really not a big deal. Sometimes you have to dig really hard to find that sympathy and you're like, "Want me to tell you what I'm dealing with?" Grandpa had to move to Virginia last year in August, I couldn't manage his care and my job, not with Grandma gone. I was constantly over there managing my aunt and him, and she would, oh, demand all the time. I remember I had a date, and I was so excited. It was the first date I'd had since I'd come back to Utah, and she called sobbing, "Can you just give me a break?" You couldn't have called an hour earlier? Any other time? All the times I've offered. I remember we shouted at 34 each other so bad. You couldn't leave him alone for even a few minutes. He was always looking for Grandma, couldn't find her, of course, and then he just decided that she was "Nancy's at the store, Nancy's on one of those trips to New Mexico again, isn't she?" "Sure thing, Grandpa." But we moved him, I got the house cleaned out, Dad and my aunts helped, got it sold. That's about the time that my boss offered me a clinical director position. That's kind of the head therapist. So I'm clinical director for three of our offices and all of our virtual team, which was completely new. Still is new. I'd always wanted to be a clinical director, I knew I had the experience, but I always felt younger than everybody. I hadn't been there for a year. I didn’t want to get that job. But apparently the boss nominated me for the position, so I got it. And then everything went crazy because then I was trying to not only do my job, but manage all these people and try to keep them sane, and keep them from quitting in all this. I was so busy I missed the text from my best friend to watch her cats, and she didn't text again, so I didn't notice it. But then she didn't speak to me for several months, and when I confronted her about it, she told me what it was. I was furious because I'd always been so understanding of all the time that she bailed on me, all the times when she needed something, I'd been there. And we apologized, I thought “Okay we're going to be fine.” She had COVID, so we didn't see each other for a couple of months, so I showed up for Christmas and I always doted on her daughters, been kind to her husband, kind to her. But then I didn't hear from her again, and my other grandfather passed in March. At this point, I only have one grandparent and he doesn't remember who I am anymore. And I was dealing with so much and she wasn't bothering to talk to me. I'd only come out to her as bi the year before I was like, "Is it that? What is this?" Finally, I decided, “You know what, 35 this isn't healthy to stick with a friend that doesn't do for you what you did for them.” I told her so, hoping that we could work it out. Instead she lambasted me for everything she felt I had done. We had been in a car accident, wrecked my car, which is now replaced with a new car that looks the same. And I just l told her, "You know what? We're just better being done. I'm not doing this anymore." So I've been slowly, since then, rebuilding new friendships, building up new hobbies and things to try to make something here. We did a presentation on LGBT club relations at work last year. Every month we take a turn teaching a CEU which is just your continuing education credits and, I take my turns. I'd done a really cool one on suicidality for kids under 10. Kind of hard topic for a lot of people. And this gal was just talking about the LGBTQ+ community. But she wasn't LGBTQ+ and so I was correcting some things. And as we're talking, I just said, "You know what, there's no reason I had to hide here." So I was honest, “I'm pansexual, here’s some of my background, here’s what I do, here's why I know this is this, here's how I know this about the transgender community.” And there was no flack. They were all just professionals about it and had all kinds of questions. I was like, “You know what? This is just fine. I don't have to hide anything at work anymore.” I don't keep big flags or anything at work because sometimes I have parents that come in and I kid you not, "Fix my kid." It's really great to go, "They sent you to me on purpose." Because all my scheduling staff know because they know that I will be there for that kid and that they're safe there and that the parent’s not gonna know a thing. I had a teenager who was like, "Well, you don't look lesbian." "I'll turn in my membership card right away." And that has been amazing because the referrals just keep coming, because the staff always send them my way or to the one other person who's gay at our 36 work. And to be able to be there for those young kids that are figuring that out, that is so satisfying. And sometimes it's parents calling saying, "OK, I know my kid is gay, they haven't come out yet, what do I do?" It's like, “I can help you with that.” And then I think it was about four months ago that Dad started really talking about, I think part of it helped that his dad wasn't in the state anymore, how he'd wanted a pink room as a kid. How he'd always wanted dolls and his dad would beat him when he wanted those things. I love my grandfather, but I have always known that he was not a good person sometimes. And I think that is why my father has always been so stereotypically male: Motorcycle, big beard, into sports and all the very masculine things. He started really talking about wanting to try girls’ clothes, and we were fine with that. And then he talked about wanting to transition, and we're like, "Well, if you feel OK with that, we're good with that." First time he tried hormones, he was an emotional mess a whole week. So much weepiness that I was not used to, but we've been adjusting to it. And the first time I saw the beard off was, "Wow!" Because I had never not seen that beard my whole life. Now he kind of looks like my aunt. He's not out to everybody yet, he's out to a lot of people. I know this weekend he’s out visiting my uncle via the tribe, not blood. He was really nervous, you know. "What if he rejects me?" And I said, "Well, what if he doesn't?" He's like, "Well I got to be prepared for the rejection." "Or we could try to look at it as positive. He's the least likely person to judge you." His ex-wife did costumes for the theater in New York, come on. He's used to this stuff, he worked in theater.” He called last night and it went great, he already knew, he knew all along. So they went out and he dressed as a girl, and he was very happy. We still struggle 37 with the pronouns sometimes because I always have to remember who he’s out with and who he’s not. So sometimes I still use he. I try not to mess up the she when I shouldn't mess up the she, and the he when I shouldn't mess up the he. But we're adjusting to it. We've already declared, "No, I'm not calling you Mom, because that will offend my mom.” That's a title that my mother is very proud of, and she's not going to let that go. Dad is OK, that does not mean anything with gender, we'll adjust as we go. She made a great friend that owns a consignment shop, and has been helping with clothes for larger women because she is larger, which also led to when I was supposed to go over help with boxes, me ending up with eight/nine pairs of shoes I did not need. But it's been fun because I am the one that likes shoes and fashion. So I was teaching the other day, how to do a cupid's bow to do your lipstick so it doesn't blur. And the big thing is she just wants to know that she is supported. She keeps citing research like, "Well, families, once you come out in transition, don't stick around. That's what the research says, that's rare." "Yeah, but the research is limited. Let's keep in mind here. You have a Ph.D. You know how research works? I'm in the middle of research for my doctorate. I know how research works. That doesn't mean that it's true." But Mom's got her back, all her siblings were fine with this. We've always been that way. LR: So do you, out of curiosity, do you think that your mother struggles with anything? EB: No, not all of the things that my dad worries about. Dad worries about “Well, now she doesn't know whether she's a lesbian or not." “Mom doesn't care about labels." "Well, this is way hard on your mother." "Not the way you think. She's not as emotional as you. And these emotional basket case moments (clarification: struggles with intense emotions from 38 hormones) are driving her a little batty, yes. But she's not annoyed with you." Dad’s always been a little more sensitive and Mom's always been protective. So at first, sometimes when he'd want to go out in a skirt with a full beard and everything, we’d be like, "Are you sure? Let's maybe not today." Always been more sensitive than us. I've had crap yelled at me and told to me. I'm a bigger girl, who's not straight, who hangs out with Native Americans in Utah. I'm used to being picked on. He doesn't handle it so well. So we were very afraid of him going out in a skirt, looking feminine, but not being feminine. The beard makes that a lot easier. He can totally pass. But he took that as we weren't supporting him. He and my mother have always had trouble with communication. I've always been the translator there. It’s always been, “No, no, no, no she means this.” “No, no, no, no he means this.” Well, I think that probably got me into therapy, honestly. Being able to translate that for the two of them. So sometimes I just sit there and say, “Mom, he took it as you don't have his back on this and you're feeling embarrassed.” “Dad, she's worried that you're going to go out and someone's going to make fun of ‘em in front of you. And then she's not tough enough to go punch somebody, you are. So here's the problem.” But they're adjusting. Mom loved her brother, Roberta, and had her back 100. I think that losing her was really hard. And I think there's some fear of my dad being shamed or treated as she was. I think that makes her a little worried. LR: Yeah, that makes sense. EB: But I know that she's not judgy, never has been. LR: All right. Well, I'm I really just have two more questions left and I think we're doing pretty good. EB: Yup, we're doing great. LR: So, what advice would you give to young people growing up today who identify with the LGBTQ+ community? 39 EB: I always use a parable whenever I have kids come in the office about being yourself, I call it the funeral potato parable. I don't use it for kids that aren't from here because explaining funeral potatoes to people that aren't from Utah is hard. Funeral potatoes are a very simple recipe. But even though they are very simple, no two families make them the same way. Some families insist on Special K on top, which I don't get. Some insist frozen potatoes are awful, it must be fresh potatoes or nothing. Some use cream of chicken, some use cream of mushroom. If you got to go somewhere and you got to make funeral potatoes, how can you make them in a way that 100% someone’s going to like? You make them the way you like, you're the only person there you know well enough to know what you 100% like. No matter what you make someone's going to go "Where's the Special K. Where's the onions? Oh, I like shredded. Oh, I heard the hash browns style." But odds are most of them, even in conservative LDS communities, are going to take heaping scoopfuls of it. The few that hold out only eat it a certain way- you're never going to please anyways. You're stuck with you your whole life. Be you. Everyone’s either going to take scoopfuls of it or not, and most kids get that, it's just about being comfortable in your own skin. You can't mold yourself into something that everyone's going to like. So why try to be something you don't want to be in the first place? LR: I like that parable. All right, and then my final question is, how does your experience in Northern Utah compare with where you grew up or other places you've lived? EB: Well, Northern Utah is much more conservative, and there's a lot of pressure politically on women that you don't see elsewhere, particularly with marriage. A lot of it connects with the LDS church and being married and raising children and doing all the things to be temple worthy. You don't see that in the same way in the South. There is a little bit of judgment, but not the same way. I remember I once bought a pair of lacy panties and a woman I didn't even know walked up to tell me that a 40 young lady such as myself shouldn't be buying such things. Now that does happen in the South, but it's also a community that's dealt with a lot of judgment. So as long as you don't tell me how to do my religion, they won't tell you how to do theirs. As long as you don't tell me who to date, I won't tell you who to date. It's a little more laid back and lazy in a lot of ways despite being near the Bible belt. Alaska, Alaska is a place where you go if you're different, and people just accept that. It's one of the few places I know where you could be schizophrenic and everyone just goes, "Oh, Bob just does that sometimes." But it also does have that small town mentality. And so be yourself, be different, but don't bug anyone else, cause we will remember it forever and always. If there was one time where you got drunk and threw up on someone's shoes twenty years ago, everyone's going to remember it forever and ever. And so that has its problems. There are people that are definitely gay and trans in Alaska, but that's harder to do, and it's harder to get away from the judgment. Wyoming, Wyoming has problems. It gets so stuck in its own dogma of, “Cowboy, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, conservative, country, love, God, family.” Sometimes they don't realize how stupid they look and they do that sometimes. There are amazingly welcoming wonderful people in Wyoming, but everyone doesn't want the judgment. So if you're different and people don't like it, they're not gonna necessarily have your back. It's tough to be an LGBTQ+ teen in Wyoming, it's tough to be an adult, but teen, it's really hard. It's still just part of the norm, and I've always found Ogden to be the wilder stepsister in Utah, as opposed to when I work in Logan twice a week where it's like, “Oh, so this is where Grandma is in Utah.” I feel judged. Cache Valley’s really like that. I have a couple of teens out there that really just struggle. We talk about, well, this is just one itty bitty corner of the world and even Cache Valley’s growing and changing. 41 LR: OK, was there any other story that you want to share before we shut off the camera? EB: I’m trying to think of any, none are coming to mind. LR: I think that was really thorough; I really enjoyed your stories. I thank you for your time and your willingness. EB: My pleasure. Interviewee Addendum: My father fully transitioned and shared with others about the transition in the weeks following this interview. I refer to her now as Ina, which is the Lakota word for mother, and sometimes as Mother. She is doing very well, as is my family, including my parents’ marriage. Many have been accepting, some have not, but we continue to thrive.