Part 2 of 2. Interview with trans people in Eastern Oregon (Other Conversations, Summer 2023). TW: some discussion of sexual abuse and racism.

In this interview, I speak with a pre-transition trans woman, a transgender man, and a nonbinary person in the town of La Grande, Oregon.

We talk about the social climate and demographics of the local area, the beauty of the mountains in Eastern Oregon, immigration and agricultural work, secrecy around sexual abuse, why it's important to teach about sexuality and consent in public schools, about being goth and part of the LGBT community in a small town, creative makeup work including elaborate cosplay and related conferences, accessing trans related healthcare in a rural place, differences between Washington and Oregon, being a trans woman in a rural town, exploring being differently gendered when they were growing up, how they've tried to explain their experience to their friends, their participation in Pride parades and BLM (Black Lives Matter) protests, and racism in Oregon.

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Other Conversations is an independent, informal oral history project by Shane Brodie, a multi-issue activist and sculptor. This project is on hiatus as of Fall 2023 as I continue to slowly upload previous interviews, but it may continue later on in 2024 or thereafter. If you are interested in being interviewed sometime in the future, please email me (see below) and we can talk about that privately.

I've interviewed transgender, nonbinary, gender non-conformist, agendered, neutrois, and intersex people who are anarchist, independent, conservative, egalitarian, progressive, free speech and gun rights enthusiasts, rural, religious, atheist, voluntaryist, mutualist, apolitical, skeptical, constitutionalist, classic liberal, libertarian, small political party members, socialist, DSA, communist, radical, revolutionary, or have a mixture of right/left views etc.

In this project, I've striven for thoughtful content from a variety of points of view. I haven't allowed comments because I want to limit harassment of my interviewees. This means that my project is barely treading water in the tsunami of anti-trans content on social media. If you've found these interviews interesting, please "like" and share them. If you are interested in starting your own interview project, you are welcome to contact me if you think my experience might be useful to you and you want some advice.

My email address is shbrodie1@gmail.com

Thanks!