Roe Degrace:
CLASS OF 1962
Gardner High SchoolClass of 1962
Gardner, MA
Roe's Story
Updated October 2011
What a Life!!
1963 I promptly flunked out of UMass Amherst. 17 was too young for me to start college.
1963-1967 Sgt E-5, U.S.Marine Corps. First in class at aircraft instrument school. Aircraft flight crew member. TAD assistant mountain warfare winter survival, escape, and evasion instructor. Married HS girlfriend Gaylynn Powers. Lynn and I have a daughter, Cheryl who retired as Master Sergeant, U.S Air Force. As Lynn and I matured, we drifted apart. My devoting all my time to work and school widened the gap. Our marriage ended after 5 years. We are still friends. She has celebrated 30 years marriage to Arthur, who has been a great husband.
1967 - 1974 Electronics assembly foreman in Worcester, also worked a year with old friend Bud Stanley at his Dad's jewelry store. (I lost track of Bud and Maureen Walsh,after they moved away from Del Ray, FL, I would love to reconnect with him.) Divorced from Lynn. Returned to UMass, older and now motivated. Earned a BBA in cost accounting, and an MBA in corporate finance.
1974 - 1978 Married college girlfriend, a Boston girl. Fast track financial management development program with Raytheon. Lived for a year in Harvard Square. Transferred to Santa Barbara, CA. Found I loved horses, learned to ride pretty darn well and to work cattle from horseback. Competitive trail riding. Changed my job and did cost accounting at manufacturing plants in Mexico.
1979 - 2000 Wife and I quit everything, packed up and moved to Virginia. Started anew there. Assistant Controller of large printing company. Business trips to New York, Cincinnati, Louisville. Made presentations at HQs of Dow Industrials companies. Traded my love of horses for sports cars and got very good at autocross competition. Until 1985. Recession! Company sold. No job opportunities. Became car salesman (hated it), then an auto mechanic, and got good at it. Earned masters certifications as automotive technician and machinist. Lots less stress than my work in finance. Hired by Ethyl Oil Research Laboratory as a tech. Lived in the shadow of the St. Louis Arch for a year while waiting for a Richmond, VA laboratory to be constructed. Built over 200 precision automotive test engines for oil tests. Had a beautiful home on acreage in the countryside outside of Richmond, a canal-side building lot on a North Carolina island, and two vacation homes on the beaches of South Carolina. Motorcycles and mountain bikes took the place of sports cars. Until 2000!
2000 - 2006 Divorce again! Will I ever get it right? (Yes I will a little later) My wife of 27 years left me within the hour when I told her I learned that I'm transgender. Just a few months later the research lab I worked in downsized. I got early retirement, but the retirement check was too small to live on. Packed up and moved to Texas. Hired as project leader for another automotive research lab. Found I love the symphony, opera and theatre. Who knew? Collecting and restoring vintage racing bicycles became a hobby. Dancing became a passion. And all this while, I'd been dealing with my new self-awareness. At age 56, I'd figured out what had been wrong all my life and I sought professional help. Yes, some of you were right. I did throw a baseball like a girl in high school and there were medical reasons for it. At age 60 I finally did something about it. Changes, oh yes, some significant changes! Those really are my 'today' pics. The Romeo & Juliette teasing used to really hurt me. I always felt inside that I should have been Juliette. When I tried to present myself and act like a man as everyone expected I decayed. When I finally understood what was different about me and began to present myself and act like the woman I really am I blossomed. I'm now a much happier person than Romeo ever hoped to be. I've always known I was a woman, but I had to struggle every day of my life to look and act like a man. That acting takes so much emotional and physical energy that there is no energy left for friends or family; so they suffer too.
But life can get better if you persevere - and are lucky enough to be blessed by good fortune. I met my perfect mate in an Argentine Tango dance workshop, she's a Texas girl. Got married again. Years before I came here, a controversial court ruling created a legal loophole that allows same sex marriage here if one of the partners is transsexual. We now have a lovely little home in the city, in a neighborhood full of wonderful friends. I have a new step-family to love with grand-children and great-grand-children. Celebrated my 62nd birthday with a bicycle charity ride of 150 miles to the coast; my third time doing this, but this time I rode with my step-son and his wife. It has been a new beginning for me in many wonderful ways.
So, what's it like being a transsexual person?
I could live my life quietly now as a woman. I'm accepted as a woman in my community and I'm a woman in the eyes of the Court. I could shut the door on my former life as a man. So why should I talk to you to about my transsexuality? Because in order for you to really understand the condition, and the process, you need to put a face on it; and to put a face on it, you need to know a lot more than I might otherwise be inclined to share with you. To transition from one sex to the other is a very personal process. To fully explain it to others, one must be willing to bare one's soul.
Transsexuality is, contrary to popular opinion, not all that rare. It seems rare because most transsexual persons keep our lives secret from everyone. At first, we think that something must be wrong; and that we are alone in the world with this. When we dare to tell anyone about it, we're treated as if we are weird; so we quickly learn to just hide.
Yes we hide - and a destructive process begins.
Our culture puts a lot of energy into hatred and damnation of any difference in general, and of being sexually different in particular. From grade school on, the constant use of terms like "sissy", (and all the other slurs that Classmates.com won't let me print - but you know what they are, fg, qer, hmo, prvt), as taunts and curses inflicts and instills a deep-set shame in anyone who already feels so different inside. We know that subtle and pervasive bigotry can quickly escalate to discrimination or actual violence, and can affect almost every aspect of life. Many people in our society have a serious problem with the very idea of transsexuality. This changing of one's sex, which so many people don't understand or accept, makes some folks confused, then angry, and sometimes violent towards us. There are those who feel fatal levels of hatred about it, who care not at all about trying to understand it or the suffering it inflicts upon us. There are narrow-minded souls who refuse to accept the validity that tran...Expand for more
ssexuality is a condition of birth, who insist it is "simply a matter of personal choice", and who would just as soon see all transsexual persons dead.
Within this toxic environment of condemnation, we are constantly under psychological and emotional attack.
This attack easily - and early in life - becomes internalized to varying degrees. Storms of hatred from the outside soon cause infection with hatred on the inside. Self-worth is replaced with varying degrees of shame and self-loathing. Inevitably this leads to suffering, self-destruction, and, for some of us, attempts and successes of suicide.
A vicious circle is created. It starts from the cultural pressure, and is sustained by our own internal judgment. We hide to avoid pain and shame. The pain and shame become internalized, become a part of us. We hide because of fear of rejection and fear of harm. The constant hiding implies the need to hide. All alone against society, we find it difficult to reject the hatred of so many. Self-condemnation reinforces the impulse to hide. The act of hiding reinforces the self-condemnation, and so it goes, round and round.
It can seem like there is no escape from this downward spiral into despair - and then it gets even worse!
We live in a culture focused on family and friends; on human interaction. The basis of most everyday communication is about our lives and our relationships. Closeted (hiding and stealth) transsexual persons must either lie about our lives, or we must fall silent and otherwise avoid this most basic form of human communication.
Over time, this lying or silence causes more suffering. When we feel unable to express the joy of a happy day with a loved one, or to tell a funny story about our life, or to share something we've learned, we are made mute. This kind of self-censorship destroys the soul, and leads to even further withdrawal and depression.
There is only one positive way for a transsexual person to climb out of this emotional hell. To regain a solid self worth it becomes necessary to eventually find the courage to accept one's self, and to become open with the world about one's self.
Why do I present myself to you, my classmates, talking so openly about my transsexuality? It's about helping you to understand this normal variation among the many ways that people can be born into the human race!
I've reclaimed the basic human feelings of dignity and self worth; reclaimed the freedom to speak, to share, and to just be myself, and recognized the value of explaining to you, who we are, and why we are. For when you really understand us, it allows more of my transsexual sisters and brothers to communicate with you about their own lives in an honest and real manner, devoid of lies and subterfuge, without fear of discovery or embarrassment, just like any other person. I believe that when I, and many others like me, have finally made enough of you understand about us, then someday, one beautiful someday, ALL transsexual persons will be able to just be themselves, safely living openly, and never needing to hide again.
2007 I finally came out at work; I did not know how my employer would react, so I waited until I was over 62 so I could fall back on an early retirement and Social Security if I was treated badly. I transitioned from male to female on the job. All of my clients continued to work with me and my co-workers took the change in stride. The sky did not fall as some would have expected.
2008 and beyond. I remained an automotive research project leader until November 2010 when a terrible case of shingles forced me to retire. As I write this update, I have had the shingles pain in the back of my head for over a year. Various treatments have lessened the pain, but none have been able to stop it. I've become an advocate for human rights concerning transgender issues. Since 2009, I've taught how police should deal with transgender individuals as part of a mandatory Cultural Awareness Class for all cadets at the San Antonio Police Academy. I lecture to psychology students at local universities. In 2007, 2008, and 2009 I lobbied Senators and Representatives in Washington DC and in Austin Texas for a federal hate crimes law and a federal employment non-discrimination law. I've given expert testimony to the Texas State Medical Board, and testified before a Texas State House sub-committee. I was elected by friends and neighbors to be a delegate to the June 2008 and the June 2010 Texas State Democratic conventions. At the 2008 State convention, I lost to another candidate for election as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, but I feel like a winner for just getting as far as I did. Also in 2008 I presented a workplace transition workshop to an international conference of human resources professionals. In 2009, I gave a sunrise plenary workshop about Coming Out Day to the National Association of Applied and Clinical Sociologists
What's in the future? No one really knows. My dreams of traveling with my wife after my retirement are gone because of medical issues for both of us, but I've found a way to enjoy retirement and give something back to this community that welcomed me as Julia. As a member of the local detachment of the Marine Corps League, I visit wounded Marines and wounded Navy Medical Corpsmen every Wednesday at the hospital burn unit at Fort Sam Houston. I'm also a member of a Marine Honor Guard at the monthly funeral ceremonies for homeless veterans at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery. When my health and time permits in the future I would like to volunteer at the San Antonio chemotherapy clinic that saved my wife's life..
In 2011 I took training classes with the NRA and with the Texas Department of Public Safety to become certified as an NRA trainer in five firearms disciplines and certified as a Texas concealed carry firearms instructor. I hope to find part time employment as an instructor with an established training school. For the past few years I've competed in local action tactical pistol, carbine, and shotgun shooting matches There are enough local clubs shooting IDPA, IPSC, and Steel Shoot that I compete in three or four different matches every month.
I hope to be at the 50th reunion with you all in 2012. I would really love to hear from my classmates of '62. I see that many of you have visited my profile. I've enjoyed hearing from those of you who have written.
I've been told that Don Maki passed away. I was so sorry to hear that. He was a very close friend in grade school and high school. Does anyone know the whereabouts of my other very close friend Bud Stanley? I lost track of Bud a few years ago when he moved away from Florida. He may have moved to Pepperell MA or to New Hampshire.
Please learn to know me as Julia Rose DeGrace. I'm still the same person on the inside, although my outside has changed quite a bit.
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