Introduction:
Hi, I’m Jessica Birdsong. I’m 33 years old and I’m a transgender woman. I’ve been living in Portland since, October 2016. I’ve been on hormone replacement therapy since 2018.
- Where do you work?
New Seasons. I’ve worked there since I started my transition. At first, I was afraid to come out at work, but seeing you there I was able to find courage to come out. - What was it like to transition at New Seasons?
I’m currently looking for a better job. I’ve had issues with transphobic people, one person in particular couldn’t hold back. I really hated that guy.
Since moving to my new store location, things seem better, but I pass a lot better now so…that probably also has something to do with it, right?
It’d be great if I could work for myself. That’s what I’m trying to do right now. I’m focusing on writing, and my Only Fans, which is something I like to do. - When did you move to Portland?
I moved to Portland in 2016. I had friends from my hometown of St. Louis that had been living here for awhile. They were happy to have me come over. I stayed with them for two months. That was a difficult time for me because I had been living in Taiwan for three years and had recently married. I was away from my spouse (who lived in Taiwan) and was trying to come to terms with the fact that I was transgender. It turns out my friends weren’t as supportive as I expected. I had one friend who would make homophobic slurs around me. I asked him not to do that and he just straight up said no. I don’t consider him a friend anymore, but he was at the time. I was glad to get out of there. I spent a lot of time alone after that. - What made you decide it was finally time to transition?
I realized, in Portland, that it was possible for me to transition…which is something I’d always wanted to do but was never in a situation where I could before. And so I had to make a decision.
I guess the tipping point for me was when I saw Laura Jane Grace of Against Me! on September of 2017. She was up there rockin out, very confident, she filled the entire venue and they all loved her. She isn’t hyper feminine or anything. She was just being herself. She wasn’t trying to be anybody’s idea of a woman. You know…society’s heterosexual, cisgender idea of a woman. I thought that was really cool. So I thought, well, I’ve got to make a change. I got to do it. But it took me awhile because of my living situation. My spouse was very unsupportive. When I came out and told her I wanted to do that… I just knew there was no chance of us staying together. - Do you have any advice to anyone who is currently starting to transition or thinking about it?
Advice to anyone thinking about transitioning: You might have heard “It gets better”. A phrase that came out about 10 years ago aimed at gay kids being bullied in school. I’d say it gets better in that you can eventually surround yourself with people who aren’t going to give you shit. Who will be supportive towards you and appreciate you for who you are and who you are becoming. So in that way it gets better. Unfortunately that doesn’t apply for the world at large. You can find good people to be around and find support, but just understand that if your transitioning from male to female…that’s one of the worse things you can do in the eyes of many people. You lose a lot of your rights, a lot of your safety, you are singled out for harassment, abuse, threats, assault, you know…there’s a lot of times people who aren’t trans are going to tell you “you are the bravest, strongest person I know”…and I’m like… “well I kinda have to be”. The shit I went through, the shit I still go through, you gotta be tough, you gotta be hard.
If you know you have to transition, you need to draw on strength from within yourself and through others. It doesn’t always feel empowering…it can be a horrible, confusing slog.
When I die, I want to be remembered as a woman, not as a man. That’s what kept me going…because I thought I was going to die soon. - What are some pros and cons of living as a trans woman in Portland?
Trans health care is very easy to get here. I think that’s the main reason why a lot of transgender people have been moving here for a long time and set up communities. I use the word “community” in a very loose way.
A lot of times, transgender people in Portland aren’t really there for each other. Not a great deal of solidarity. I’m not sure why that is. I thinks that’s a problem here in Portland in general. People don’t talk to each other. - Have you traveled outside of Portland since your transition?
Yes I have, I went back to St. Louis to visit some family for Christmas about two years ago (2019).
What was that experience like?
When I left the Portland Airport, they didn’t give me any trouble.
Nobody gave me any trouble on the airplane either, it went smooth.
Though I realized in St. Louis that I didn’t pass as well as I thought I did. Cuz I got a lot of looks. People would look at me in Portland and think “oh you’re trans” and they’re use to that. I think I misinterpreted that as I’m “passing”.
So, I went to St. Louis, and I mostly stayed at home and hung out with my family. We went out a few times and I definitely got a lot of looks. We went to the zoo and there’s a little coffee shop in the middle of it. I was waiting on a coffee and talking with my family, and I realized everyone that was around me waiting for their coffee just went silent. There was like 20 people there and they were are all just silently staring at me. You would think I was this absolute freak. I kept my composure, but it really made me think.
Fortunately I live in Portland, and while I’ve been here I’ve worked on other things to help me pass more.
People here in Portland talk about “passing privilege”, but I don’t see it as a privilege I see it as survival… its a survival strategy…and that’s why I made those efforts. It is like learning how to gather food…those are survival strategies, but learning to pass, when you go out into the straight world, that’s survival strategy too. - So do you feel like passing and non passing can keep you from traveling like you use to? I know you’ve lived in China, Taiwan, you’ve trekked through South America. Do you feel like things have changed as far as your freedom to do things like that…not just as a woman, but as a trans woman.
Well yea, It’s something that’s kinda gone to the forefront of my mind. I use to travel alone. My life’s completely changed. Part of the reason I can’t travel is because right now I need stability. Gone are the days I can just uproot my life and start over, several thousand miles away on a different continent. I’m not gonna be able to do that anymore, and that’s fine with me because as great as travel was, this (living as a woman) is a lot more fulfilling. - How have your family and friends reacted to you living life as a woman?
Well, its different for everybody. Everyone responds to it differently in ways that are unpredictable. A lot of my old friend group is no longer my friend for different reasons.
My dad was very angry, but now we are talking again which is good.
My mother, it took her a bit. I think she was just tired of my shit at that point. She was like “oh great… another problem”, probably not out of transphobia. It was just like “oh my god, haven't you made me suffer enough?”
My grandmother was very supportive. She took the news better than everybody. She was like “ah ya I knew it, I’m glad you can transition” that’s kinda what she said.
I’ve already talked a bit about my ex spouse. I’m happy to say that we don’t talk or see each other anymore. - Why did y’all stop talking?
Unfortunately, we stayed together in the same house for awhile. We had our reasons, but I think the last time I said a word to her was 2019. That was it, and ya we moved on and I’m grateful. I’ve had a lot of relationships since then. - What relationship/s are you in right now?
I’m in a long term relationship with a man, and he’s great. He’s the first guy I’ve been in a relationship with who actually loves me. And, of course, I love him back. I didn’t know I could feel that way about a man. I’ve always been attracted to men, but in a certain way, not the way I’m attracted to women. So this is a great new experience for me. Usually the guys I’m with don’t want to stick around.
- Where do you see yourself living in the future?
The best idea for my future would be to get out of the city and start my own thing. Not all by myself. Hopefully it would be with my partner because we’ve been talking about it. Something like a community that’s self sufficient and looks after each other, helping each other out. A “commune” if you will. - What led you to travel around the world?
Well, I’ve always been a restless person. I wanted to leave my hometown of St. Louis where I grew up. My cousin actually recommended that I go to China to teach English. So I thought, why not? I arrived in a city called Changchun a few days before Christmas, and this is in the frozen North-Eastern part of China. It was bittercold.
What was that like?
I spent most of my time in Changchun. It’s a large city where they make most of the cars in China. It has a bunch of auto-plants there. I like the people there. I struggled there because of my health. The air was bad and I couldn’t handle a lot of the food I was eating, so I was sick very often and my coworkers where heavy drinkers.
I finished my 1 year contract and got out of there and I managed to save a a lot of money. For the first time in my life, I had several thousand dollars in my bank account. So, I thought, fuck it, I’m gonna go backpack by myself through South America.
Where all did you go?
Argentina, Uruguay, Chili, and Peru.
How’d you end up in Taiwan?
Well I tried to go back to China to teach, but the air pollution there was so bad that I left after 3 months. I thought, “I’m not going back to the states, fuck that”, so I just bought a plane ticket to Taiwan, stayed in a hostel and found a job.
I like Taiwan a lot, but there’s a lot of reasons I had to leave. There wasn’t a lot of things I could have done there. I was getting tired of the work I was doing. I was getting sort of restless, like I do. I didn’t really want to admit it to myself, but there was a part of me that wanted to come back to the US where I had a chance of transitioning. Because it was there (Taiwan) that I started to accept myself as…I didn’t call myself transgender, I called myself genderfluid, nonbinary. I would sort of just privately present as female, and I would only tell a few people. I would have gone out (in Taiwan presenting female) but I already stood out (as a westerner) anyway. I was working with kids, and if somebody spotted me they would have thought “oh no, we can’t have this freak around our kids”. That would have been the end of my job. - So you thought it would be safer to come out in the US?
Yes, in the US, I could finally leave my apartment. That was good. It was an important step in finally trying to experience the world as female. - What does “experiencing the world as female” mean to you? Why transition?
It’s just a way that feels more natural to me. I think we are all social creatures that rely on socialization and recognition to form a sense of self. In Portland, I recognized myself in transgender women. Before that I recognized myself in cisgender women. I thought oh…I see. Living as a man…I felt distant. I didn’t connect with a lot of men. I had trouble forming connections with anyone because I wasn’t being myself. I was kind of this absurd person just trying to headbutt my way through life somehow.
There are challenges of course, but everything feels lighter, feels easier. I feel more comfortable with myself and how I express myself.
- I know I’m bouncing all over the place, but can you tell me about your childhood?
I think my childhood was unremarkable. I was born in St. Louis. I come from a broken home. There was often tension between my father and mother and I found myself caught in the middle of that. As I hit puberty, I became very upset with what my body was doing, and I tried to express that in different ways, using the words I knew. And no matter who I talked to about it…the adults…I would get shot down real quick. I wasn’t even suppose to be thinking about these things. I didn’t like what was happening to me.
I started presenting as female secretly when I was in middle school because I got home a little early. Sometimes I would go and try to put on makeup and paint my nails. Sometimes I would put on my moms clothes, but I had a few close calls and I always felt so guilty afterwards because I’m sneaking around my parents room and it feels really gross. But if there had been another way to go about it I would have done that. Its not like I could take my 12 year old self up to goodwill or something and start picking out stuff. I had no money. I don’t even think they would have sold those kind of clothes to me. How do I keep it a secret? Ya know? I just did it that way. I did it in high school and felt guilty again. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much privacy so I didn’t really have a space to experiment. - Do you have brothers and sisters?
I have a little sister that I lived with and an older sister I didn’t meet til I was like 20. - Did you feel safe in your home?
Not really. A lot of it had to do with my step-dad, he was a dick. Always finding new excuses to yell at me or tell me exactly what he thought of me. You know, he would laugh at me, sneer at me, I didn’t like that. I felt a lot of the times like I was going to jump out of my own skin because I didn’t really have an outlet for all this stuff and I didn’t feel like anything would ever change…which led to all kinds of problems for me. - Do you feel like any of your family and friends sensed your queerness in anyway?
I came off as queer quite a bit. Especially in my friend group. I had a few friends that were openly queer, and I got along well with them.
When I came out to my friends, a lot of them weren’t really surprised. I had hinted at it before when we were playing dungeons and dragons. I played a female character and and they noted, “This is the second female character you’ve played in a row.” And I replied, “well yea because I don’t get to be a woman in real life.” Maybe it didn’t register to them then, but when I came out to them I think connections were made. - So I see all over your Instagram, guns, guns, and more guns. When did you form an interest in that and why is it important to you?
I think its partly because I grew up around guns. When I was growing up we had a couple of hunting rifles. I got to shoot them and be familiar with them and I always enjoyed it. It wasn’t an interest of mine when I was traveling, but when I got back to the states I started thinking about it again. It took me awhile, but I finally purchased a rifle, an AR-15. I purchased it piece by piece and put it together. Since then I’ve rebuilt it, modified it, and bought a pistol. I actually bought the pistol first. I really enjoyed having a pistol because I wasn’t familiar with them and I wanted something that I felt confident using to defend myself and others. So I did a lot of training and research on it. I wouldn’t say I have formal training, but I think practice, research, and holding yourself accountable to improving can go a long way. I feel very confident with shooting both the pistol and the rifle. I’m nowhere near being at competition level or anything, but I’ve really enjoyed improving my skills. I feel like I’ve also improved as a person because I’m a lot more conscience about things like safety and being actively aware of what’s going on around me. Situational awareness, things like that, and I’ve actually opened a few peoples’ minds about guns and brought a few folks into it. I’m pretty happy about that. - What are some good resources for anyone interested in getting a weapon to protect themselves or their community?
You got to learn the basics first. Then practice the fundamentals, over and over again. It helps to get a good group of people that are willing to work together and and learn from each other. That’s been very helpful for me.
I learned a lot from a Youtube channel called Tacticool girlfriend. She makes great videos. Very watchable. I actually trained with her once. I was a little star struck, but I played it cool.
What’s she like to train with?
She’s pretty chill. She was very attentive to what I was doing and pointed things out that I could do better. I saw improvement afterwards, so I really appreciate that. I think she is a great resource for beginners because she doesn’t jump straight into complicated stuff or brag about a weapon she has, you know that buy buy buy mentality. She’s very tactical. - In your opinion, what kind of person should own a weapon?
I’m not gonna tell people that they SHOULD own one. I just think if you want to own one and learn how to use them to protect yourself and your home, then yes you should get one. Especially for the queer people. Your enemies have them. - Oh ya, what’s that poster in your room say?
“A fascist trained today. Did you?” - So where can people here in Portland safely train with their weapon/s?
Well that’s the great thing about Portland. It’s surrounded by state owned land. You can just go out to the forest, find a gravel pit, and shoot. I always recommend going with at least one other person. Don’t go up there by yourself. If you get in trouble or accidentally hurt yourself that could be the end of your life.
I also want to add that if you have a firearm please get first aid training. Stop the Bleed courses are everywhere right now. You can find them online. I’m going to one in December. It’s through Arm Your Friends. It’s a national organization focused on getting new gun owners acquainted with their guns in a safe and supportive environment. - What if you live in Portland, own a gun, and want to shoot at a local range? Do have any recommendations?
I don’t go to a lot of ranges, but there’s a little range called A Place to Shoot in North Portland that lets you shoot pistols. So if you want to try out a new pistol or shoot a pistol for the first time I’d say go there.
Last question: Are there any books, movies, and/or music that you recommend right now?
Book-Bullshit Jobs-by David Graeber
It identifies a problem that a lot of people don’t notice that’s so prevalent right now. I think it makes people see things differently, in a good way.
Movie-The City of Lost Children
Its a French film made in 1997. A surreal, steam punk fantasy starring Ron Pearlman. The plots a bit confusing, but I enjoyed the visual experience. I can’t recommend it enough.
Music-Jess and the Ancient Ones
Its like glam rock, very campy and over the top with occultic lyrics, arena rock guitar solos, and passionate singing. Like Evanescence meets Queen maybe.
Where can people follow you?
You can follow me on Instagram @chirpchirpboom.
