THE NEW TRANSSEXUALS

Andrea James

Writer & Producer

Photo: Autumn Scruggs

George Petros: IT’S ANDREA JAMES WE’RE SPEAKING TO. ANDREA, YOU WENT TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO —

Andrea James: Yeah, I went there for graduate school.

WHERE’D YOU LIVE IN CHICAGO AT THAT TIME?

Andrea James: I lived in Hyde Park. I stayed down there for a few years afterwards, and then moved up near Wrigley Field.

DID YOU LIKE CHICAGO?

Andrea James: I loved Chicago. I got a little tired of the winters, though. I used to work in advertising and I used to come out to Los Angeles a lot to shoot things, and every time I’d leave I’d be like, “I should be out here in L.A.” So, finally I’d had enough, and I moved.

CHICAGO IS A BIG MEDIA TOWN —

Andrea James: Yeah, it’s still definitely the second-biggest advertising city in America — the biggest one in terms of packaged goods, household products, food — I did a lot of beer commercials, hamburgers and stuff like that.

ALL THE GOOD STUFF, HUH?

Andrea James: Oh yeah, and the stuff that makes you fat.

COULD YOU TELL US ABOUT SOME OF THE COMMERCIALS THAT YOU DID?

Andrea James: Yeah. I worked for one of the major breweries, and we had ads that would be on the Super Bowl. My background was, I was going to teach English — but then I wanted to get away from the people who were in the program. I just couldn’t be with people like that for the rest of my life, in some small town — some college town — dealing with those kinds of people. I was always sort of interested in advertising. I’m glad I got into it. It’s one of those things that have gotten much cooler since I did it. Now, younger people think it’s an interesting and cool job — but when I was doing it, it was definitely considered very much selling out. Trying to get musicians to do music for commercials — it was very hard to get that to happen.

I SEE.

Andrea James: So things have really changed. Having something run during the Super Bowl — that must have been quite a feather in your cap. It’s always fun knowing so many people have seen something that you worked on. It’s sad that I could probably make the most successful movie possible and it would still not be seen by as many people as have seen a household-cleaner commercial that I’ve done. The way that our country is set up, unfortunately, the most common elements — the most common denominator in terms of cultural touchstones — are commercials, at this point.

WE CERTAINLY DO SEE A LOT OF COMMERCIALS HERE IN THE USA —

Andrea James: Yes.

WELL, THANK YOU FOR THE ONES THAT YOU’VE GIVEN US.

Andrea James: Well, you know, it’s ephemera. It’s stuff that’s just writ on water, as they say. So the stuff that I did, at the moment, had its impact — but it’s pretty much eminently forgettable. The good thing about it is, it taught me how to communicate effectively and succinctly in a way that has helped me a lot in the other kinds of writing I do.

I SEE. WELL, COMMERCIALS DO COME BACK INTO STYLE IN A NOSTALGIC WAY. PEOPLE LOVE TO SEE THE OLD ONES FROM THE FIFTIES THAT LOOK RIDICULOUS IN COMPARISON TO TODAY’S WORLD —

Andrea James: Yeah, well, advertising is a time capsule. You can’t really create culture with ads, but you can certainly reflect it — and I think that’s why advertising always looks like a little moment of time. When you look back, it very much catches the sensibilities of an era.

IT CERTAINLY DOES. SO, YOU LIKED IT SO MUCH IN L.A. YOU HAD TO STAY OUT THERE ON ONE OF YOUR TRIPS —

Andrea James: Well, it was a little more than that. My business partner Calpernia Addams and I met in 1999 because we had some mutual friends who had moved to Chicago from Nashville. She had just had this terrible tragedy in her life where her boyfriend, Barry Winchell, had been murdered — and I saw how she was treated in the media. I had had a successful transition that had gone much better than most people’s. We hit it off and we started talking a lot — and then the next thing that happened was, we just started thinking about trying to make a difference in the media. I was getting tired of advertising and I wanted to see what I could do that would have a bigger impact.

YOU DIDN’T LIKE THE WAY THE MEDIA TREATED HER — COULD YOU TELL US ABOUT THAT?

Andrea James: Yeah. She was working at a club in Nashville, Tennessee that featured Transgendered performers, and was dating a guy who was in the military — and he was killed by people in his own unit, and it was because they were dating. So, it became a big thing because at the time Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was really in full force — and it became sort of this example of the problem with Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: it created this environment where it was considered shameful to be out in the military, and so it got a lot of national attention. It was on the cover of The New York Times Magazine, and that led to a lot of people really looking into her life in ways that she wasn’t ready for. When you’re dealing with a terrible tragedy, you’re being called “he” and “him” and being called a Gay man and all this kind of stuff in the press — I felt like, with my media training, I wanted to see what I could do to help people avoid that fate, whether it’s less tragic circumstances or not.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PEOPLE WHO MURDERED HIM?

Andrea James: They both went to Leavenworth. One has been let out on parole — the one who instigated it but wasn’t actually convicted of wielding. They killed him with a baseball bat. But the other one is still in prison.

NOT A GOOD STORY —

Andrea James: No, it’s not — and the one thing that happened out of it that was very heartening is that it was made into a movie — and that showed me that you can take a really terrible thing and turn it into something that can change hearts and minds. That film, Soldier’s Girl, came out in 2003.

HOW DOES SOMEBODY GET THROUGH SOMETHING LIKE THAT — AND THEN WITH THE MEDIA —

Andrea James: It was definitely the worst time in her life — and it’s not something she even likes to talk about at this point because she talked about it for many, many years. You just do the best you can, and you try to use it as a teaching moment, and try to make people realize that things like Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell are problematic and that there are more respectful ways to talk about Trans people in the media. A lot of our work has been focused on that topic. We’ve been trying to put some positive images out there, and make a difference.

A LOT OF TRANS PEOPLE ARE THE VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE AND BULLYING — IT’S A VERY DANGEROUS DEMOGRAPHIC TO BE A PART OF, ISN’T IT?

Andrea James: Yeah, it’s definitely scary and disheartening. I think part of the reason I’ve tried to do so much activism is because my life hasn’t been touched by that kind of stuff, and I’ve been very lucky in that way. I was able to transition on the job, and have money and opportunities that most people don’t. It made me feel like I need to give back as much as I could. One of the first projects we did when we got out here was to do the first all-Transgender Vagina Monologues with Eve Ensler and Jane Fonda. We had met Jane Fonda at Sundance, and Soldier’s Girl premiered. She really got us inspired to think about violence and how it affects our community — and what we might do to address that. So, Eve ended up writing a special monologue just for our performance, and there was a documentary done about it — and it was just a really great, empowering experience.

I SEE. SO, AS FOR YOUR WORK IN THE MEDIA THESE DAYS — HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE WHAT YOU DO?

Andrea James: Well, I think first and foremost I’m a writer. I’ve always written professionally — and I think that’s still my primary occupation. I own several websites on consumer issues that I started when I worked in advertising, because I felt a little guilty, and so I have one of the largest websites on transition-related information — like, how to transition. I tried to look at it from a consumer-activist point of view.

IS THIS THE TRANSSEXUAL ROADMAP THAT YOU’RE REFERRING TO?

Andrea James: Yeah.

AND WHEN DID YOU START THAT?

Andrea James: I started that in ’96. It started as an AOL web page. Eventually I made it a top-level domain and yeah, it remains a very helpful site. I get a lot of nice notes from people who found it and they’ll say, “Oh, I found it when I was thirteen — and now I’m married and a lawyer and thank you for your help.” That’s really why I did it. I wanted to write what I wish someone would have handed me when I went to the library as a youngster myself.

BECAUSE WHEN YOU WERE A YOUNGSTER THERE WAS NO ROAD MAP.

Andrea James: What happened was, in the Fifties and Sixties you would just try to find a sympathetic physician, and they would help you out, and you would get everything done. In the late Sixties and early Seventies there started to be an emergence of these gender clinics, as they called them. There were three centers in the United States — and everything became very rigid. They started making all these rules about what you had to do on this level and that level. Ostensibly it was to protect the patients — but it was really more to protect the service provider from litigation. You had certain requirements that you had to meet — but luckily, since what happened in the late Seventies, a lot of those clinics fell into disrepute, and so then it started moving back to what it is now — which is more client-centered and not as rigid. The cookie-cutter approach isn’t a good way. Most people need their own time frame. They have their own needs and their own goals and the one-size-fits-all thing — it’s definitely not in the best interest of the clients.

I SEE.

Andrea James: So, the way it was in the Fifties and Sixties was that you would go to a big city. You would find people who transitioned, and our collective wisdom was sort of an oral tradition passed down through Drag Mothers, or through houses — like, there would be a collective of people who would band together and help each other out. That was very helpful — but it’s not good for people who live in the hinterlands, people who grew up in rural areas like I did —

WHERE DID YOU GROW UP?

Andrea James: I grew up in Indiana.

OKAY —

Andrea James: The Internet, I saw very quickly, was an opportunity to turn our collective wisdom into a place where there was an electronic repository of that esoteric information. So, I put up a few pages and I sort of documented my own transition, and then as people asked me questions I would add another page — and now I have thirteen-hundred pages of stuff.

THE REWARD IS WHEN PEOPLE THANK YOU FOR YOUR GUIDANCE —

Andrea James: Yeah, that’s very rewarding to me. That’s the most rewarding thing I think I’ve ever done. It’s really delightful to me to know that some people have an easier time because of the work I’ve done.

WHEN DID YOU DO YOUR TRANSITION?

Andrea James: I started my transition in the mid-Nineties and finished everything in the late Nineties.

SO IT TAKES AWHILE.

Andrea James: Yeah, it usually takes a few years. Generally speaking, younger people go full-time sooner — but it takes longer to get everything they want done. Older people tend to take longer to get ready but then once they go full-time, they get everything done much quicker. That’s a generalization, but it’s basically because the younger you are when you start your transition, generally the easier your ability to assimilate or find a place in the world is.

I SEE.

Andrea James: And like with Gays and Lesbians, people are coming out younger and younger. One of the things I do is, I’m on the board of the TransYouth Family Alliance that helps families with minors who are gender-variant and gender-questioning. They can find resources —

TELL US ABOUT THESE FAMILIES. I’D IMAGINE THAT IT WOULD RUN THE GAMUT FROM PEOPLE WHO ARE SHOCKED TO PEOPLE WHO ARE SUPPORTIVE —

Andrea James: Yeah, and sometimes you see that move from shock to support, which is very good to see but, you know, it’s very challenging for parents. There’s a lot of medical and ethical and legal questions that are unresolved in our society. It’s really cutting-edge in terms of the way we accommodate people who don’t fit into these rigid categories that we’ve set up and so, you know, we might work with a fifteen-year-old who gets kicked out of the house, trying to resolve things with their family. Or we’re helping a middle-schooler who wants to come out at school, and we go and we talk with the administration and the teachers and get that all smoothed over. Or maybe it’s a kid who’s just about to start school and they want to start school in their affirmed gender instead of their assigned gender, and so we help the parents get all that figured out and make sure it’s a positive thing where these kids don’t feel shame and fear about being who they are — because I feel that shame is really what leads to a lot of the problems.

I SEE.

Andrea James: Low self-esteem, and a lot of the problems we have down the road —

DO YOU FIND THAT THE OTHER KIDS IN THE SCHOOLS — ARE THEIR ATTITUDES CHANGING? ARE THEY MORE ACCEPTING OF THIS NOW THAN THEY WERE WHEN YOU STARTED?

Photo: Calpernia Addams

Andrea James: Absolutely. I think Gay and Lesbian issues are sort of thirty years ahead of Trans issues — but things are getting better. There’s a lot more visibility. I’m also on the board of directors of Outfest, which is the LGBT film festival here in L.A. There’s just a lot more visibility in the media with Trans people, and the people are more aware of it, and it seems less freaky than it used to. It’s not the realm of Jerry Springer — it’s much more visible, and people may know somebody or have read about something in ways that are much more common now.

WELL, TO COME BACK TO THE FAMILIES THAT YOU DEAL WITH — YOU MUST HAVE DEVELOPED TECHNIQUES FOR DEALING WITH SOME PRETTY HIGH LEVELS OF HOSTILITY, I WOULD IMAGINE. WHO CONTACTS YOU?

Andrea James: Well, usually they call our hotline. We either get a call from a family member — usually a concerned family member who’s trying to work things out — or we get a call from the young person themselves, depending on how old they are. Maybe they’re reaching a point where they’re facing puberty, and they’re pretty concerned about that. For Trans people, that’s a very difficult thing — because you feel one way but all of a sudden your body is going the opposite direction. So, it’s very stressful. A lot of times the calls are about trying to help negotiate with their parents to get on delaying hormones that stop puberty until they’re adults and they can make a decision for themselves. A lot of times they want to go full-time at school — and so it’s just trying to help the family get the tools they need to make that an okay experience.

DO YOU FIND THERE ARE PATTERNS? DO YOU FIND THE FATHER HOSTILE, THE MOTHER SUPPORTIVE —

Andrea James: I think in general, the mothers tend to be more supportive — but I don’t think that it’s anything that’s across the board. I think everybody brings their own issues to this — and you never really know. Sometimes you assume someone’s going to be fine with it, and they’re not — and other times you think, “Oh, this person’s not going to be cool with this at all” — and they’re totally fine. Or sometimes they live up to your expectations, good or bad. It’s really just kind of rolling the dice. I think that’s one of the interesting things about working with young people and families is that they have all these different backgrounds. So, we’ve been trying to create programs that help any situation and any type of young person.

I WOULD IMAGINE THAT SOME CASES DO NOT HAVE A HAPPY ENDING.

Andrea James: That’s true. That’s true. I mean, sometimes it’s sort of a dream deferred, where we try to help the kids — we say, “Hang in there until you are an adult and can make these decisions on your own.” But there are some difficulties. We have a very high suicide rate in our community, and one of the things that we try to do is make sure that young people who are in crisis mode can find that kind of help, too.

AND THESE ARE JUST KIDS KILLING THEMSELVES — THEY HAVEN’T EVEN STARTED LIVING YET.

Andrea James: Yeah, you know, it’s tough because when you’re that age, you’re getting teased at school and you’re being told you’re worthless, you’re whatever. It doesn’t seem like there’s going to be another year or a next week even. It can get to the point where you’re not really equipped to deal with these levels of stress. Some people turn to self-medication. You know, they’ll do drugs. They’ll act out or they’ll start doing high-risk activity — and that’s what I would call slow-motion suicide. There’s an epidemic of that kind of stuff in our community, with people who are just trying to deal with their unhappiness on a day-to-day basis.

TELL US ABOUT HORMONES THAT DELAY PUBERTY.

Andrea James: There’re puberty-delaying drugs that block hormones, and they’re prescribed regularly for any number of people who are born with various kinds of traits where their bodies create more testosterone than they should, or they have precocious puberty — whatever. There’s a number of reasons that can happen to a child. So, these drugs have been developed for that use, but now they’re being used in this other way as well.

AND THAT ALLOWS THESE KIDS TO NOT HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE ISSUES OF THEIR SEXUALITY AND THEIR ORIENTATION AND ALL THAT STUFF AT SUCH A VULNERABLE AGE, RIGHT?

Andrea James: Exactly. It allows them, when necessary, to wait until they are considered old enough and mature enough to make their own decisions. And sometimes the parents will help minors with surgical options — but that’s a small part of what we do. Most people, when they hear that we’re helping young people who want to present a different gender, they go, “You’re giving them drugs and surgery” — and usually that’s not the case. Especially prior to middle school, but you get to high school — I would do anything to be able to go back in time and be able to start transitioning at that age, because it makes a huge difference in a lot of ways.

SO, YOU KNEW EARLY ON THAT YOU WERE GOING TO TRANSITION AND THAT THINGS WEREN’T WHAT THEY SEEMED —

Andrea James: Yeah. I just didn’t know how to go about it, and I didn’t think I was the only one — but I certainly thought, “Wow, I have no idea how to go about this. I have no personal role models. I’ve never met anybody who’s done this” — and the pressure to conform to society and do what people expect was another big reason that I held off so long.

DID YOU EXPLORE THE TRANSSEXUAL UNDERGROUND IN CHICAGO? HOW WAS CHICAGO FOR THAT?

Andrea James: In Chicago there’s a club called Baton, and I knew a couple of girls there who transitioned — and there was one of them who I still consider a role model, named Mimi Marks. She’s really lovely and very funny and talented. She performed in Chicago. That was kind of the way it was before the Internet, where if you wanted to meet people, you had to find where they were interacting with the public.

THIS MUST HAVE BEEN AN EXCITING TIME FOR YOU.

Andrea James: It was a difficult time because I was in a relationship and I wasn’t sure if it was going to survive if I moved forward — and it ultimately didn’t, despite best efforts on both our parts. So, it was a very difficult time, and it was a very difficult decision — but in the end, I had gotten to the point where I was having to go to the emergency room because I was freaking out so much about feeling so stressed. So, once I finally started to transition, it really felt like I’d been buried under a pile of rocks and every day I was taking another rock off. My mood kept getting lighter and lighter until I was eventually freed from being buried underneath all these expectations and misery.

YOU WERE WORKING IN THE AD AGENCIES BY DAY AND AT NIGHT GOING TO THESE CLUBS AND MEETING PEOPLE —

Andrea James: I didn’t go a lot, but I met enough people and asked enough questions that eventually I found a therapist, a physician, and all of that — and I started hair removal. That was a big part of the process, if you wait too long — like I did. Eventually I felt I could do this on the terms that I wanted, because it’s a bit of a leap of faith — which I think is part of the reason I held off. It’s a scary prospect. I transitioned on the job — and everything went great. I was prepared for the worst, but it all went quite nicely. I feel very grateful to the head of the creative department at that agency, because he really set the tone for how everybody else responded — I was very lucky to have that. I think things are better now, but at the time it wasn’t as likely to happen as it is now.

DOES THAT SPEAK TO THE ENLIGHTENMENT OF THE ADVERTISING COMMUNITY?

Andrea James: Well, I think, you know, there are a lot of Gay and Lesbian people in advertising, so I think creative people have a tendency to be a little more open-minded — but, they’re always thinking. “Oh, how are the clients going to respond?” I was working for some pretty conservative clients — but it all worked out.

HOW DID THE CLIENTS RESPOND?

Andrea James: Well, one of the interesting things — the day after I transitioned, I sold a commercial — usually you sell a couple a year — I sold a commercial the day after I transitioned, and I had to see the clients, and I had a candid moment with them. They were like, “Well, you know, I don’t get it, but if you’re happy, that’s fine.” So, hearing that from somebody who’s from a very conservative background and working at this conservative company really made me feel like, “I think this is going to be alright.”

THAT MUST HAVE BEEN A HAPPY MOMENT FOR YOU.

Andrea James: Yeah, it really was.

YOU SAY THE DAY AFTER YOU TRANSITIONED — I HAVE THE IMPRESSION OF IT BEING A MUCH MORE DRAWN-OUT PROCESS, BUT I GUESS THERE’S A DAY WHEN YOU GET YOUR REASSIGNMENT SURGERY AND THEN THE NEXT DAY EVERYTHING’S DIFFERENT —

Andrea James: Well, it’s not even the day of the surgery. There’s a day they call “going full time.” The day that you go full time — usually leading up to it you’re living part-time. A lot of people will live a double life for awhile, socially and outside of work — but they’re keeping their job and they don’t want to lose it. So they’re not doing it at work until it’s absolutely necessary. That’s what I did, and I’m of the mind that the more abrupt the transition is, the better. To me, I think it’s tougher for people to make that transition with you if you say, “Hey, a year from now I’m going to transition.” So I always tell people: wait, and then make a very clear break where you take a few days off, you come back and it’s new name. They’ve got the new nameplate on the door. They’ve got all your records pushed over. You’ve got new government IDs and your social security number has your new name and all that. It’s just a lot of little logistical things — but I think it makes it easier for people to accept the transition.

WERE YOU IN A RELATIONSHIP AT THAT POINT?

Andrea James: At that point? No.

HOW LONG HAD IT BEEN SINCE YOU’D HAD A RELATIONSHIP?

Andrea James: Probably a couple of years, by the time I went full-time.

WHAT SUPPORT DID YOU HAVE? LIKE, WHO WAS PATTING YOU ON THE BACK AND SAYING EVERYTHING’S GOING TO BE OKAY?

Andrea James: I had the support of people I knew who were also in the midst of transition. I had supportive friends who knew and were trusted enough to keep all of that a secret and not make it an issue at work. I had a pretty good support system.

I TAKE IT YOU EVENTUALLY DRIFTED INTO A RELATIONSHIP. HOW DID IT FEEL WITH YOUR NEW SELF? HOW WAS THE RELATIONSHIP AFTER THE TRANSITION?

Andrea James: Most people I know will say that I make a better woman than I did previously in my existence — that I just seem more comfortable and seem more upbeat and open. I really just cultivated this nondescript persona where it was like I was pleasant to people but I definitely had learned how not to stick out and not to draw attention — and I think part of that was because I didn’t feel like myself. Once I transitioned, it felt very validating. It felt very liberating and free. Dating was kind of an exciting new thing — sort of an interesting dynamic change, and there was this different set of powers that you can access when you’ve transitioned. When you live in the world of a woman, it’s just a different way of interacting with people.

DID YOU SEE A SIDE OF MEN THAT YOU DID NOT SEE BEFORE?

Andrea James: Well, I think a couple of things that stood out were, I suddenly for the first time felt a sort-of ever-present sense of, “I need to be more careful. I need to be more aware of my surroundings — I’m more vulnerable to being attacked now.” That was a little disconcerting at first.

THAT WOULD BE AN UNPLEASANT REVELATION.

Andrea James: Yeah, yeah. You know — and then the other thing that was interesting and kind of funny but annoying was: You get interrupted a lot more. So you have to get used to a very different interaction with people — especially with men when you’re speaking in conversations. You have to get used to people cutting you off.

WOW.

Andrea James: That took a long time. With the comedy writing I was doing, you’re bouncing ideas off of people. It’s about timing and saying what’s on your mind right at the moment — and you just have to get used to being interrupted a lot more, which took real getting used to.

WELL, THAT’S INTERESTING, THAT WOMEN ARE INTERRUPTED. WHAT DO YOU THINK THE MECHANISM IS THAT DRIVES THAT?

Andrea James: I think there’s an expectation for women to listen more and to be more pleasant. I think that’s one of the actual gifts of this to me, is that I feel like I do listen more and I’m more aware of what people are saying. I think a lot of guys are just waiting for their turn to talk. They’re not really listening to what’s being said to them.

ALSO I GUESS NOW YOU’RE ON THE OTHER END OF THE WOLF WHISTLES AND SO ON —

Andrea James: Yeah, and that took some getting used to as well. It’s strangely validating yet insulting, so it’s kind of this mixed bag — especially at first. I was walking to the drugstore yesterday and some guy felt the need to let me know his opinion of my attractiveness. You just learn to ignore it. That guy — I didn’t even look at him or acknowledge him, but when you hear it, it’s still oddly nice. It’s sexist and annoying, and I certainly don’t acknowledge it. It’s somewhat validating.

INTERESTING. TELL ME SOME OF THE PROTOCOL FOR TRANSSEXUAL DATING.

Andrea James: It depends on the person and the context and everything. Generally speaking, I’m in an unusual situation now where most people know because of the work I do. That actually adds a difficult layer, because they have to be okay with me being in the public eye. So, that’s a bit of an issue — but then again, it depends on the person. My general feeling is that if somebody doesn’t know and they come up to me and they want to go out, I’ll say yes or no just like I would with anybody else — and then, if I think it’s going somewhere, then I might tell them, usually within the first few dates. But if I don’t think it’s going anywhere, then I’ll just be, “Thanks but no thanks, bye —” and leave it at that. So it just depends. The weird thing is, if at a certain point you don’t tell, it starts to feel like a trust issue — that it’s sort of a lie of omission. That you haven’t brought this up or told them — if you’re wanting to get serious with somebody, it’s important at some point that you deal with that because otherwise there’s one of two things that can happen: If you tell him right off the bat, he may just walk away without ever getting to know you. That’s kind of depressing, but you run a bigger emotional risk to yourself if you get to know them and they really like you — and then you tell them, and they reject you.

SO IT’S A VERY PRECARIOUS SITUATION. NOW, MAY I ASK YOU — AT THE RISK OF SOUNDING SOMEWHAT NAIVE — WOULD IT BE POSSIBLE TO GET THROUGH A DATE, OR A RELATIONSHIP, WITHOUT TELLING SOMEBODY?

Andrea James: Yeah, there’s several people I haven’t told. I think it depends on who you are — how you move through the world. In my case, I just say, “Look me up online” if somebody asks me out — and then if they do, then I assume they know it. If they don’t, after that I’ll be like, “Well, I told you to look me up.” But yeah, it’s always tough to tell somebody. It’s never fun, and I don’t like to get into it — but surprisingly for me, pretty much everyone who I ended up telling was okay with it. That wasn’t the deal breaker; it was some other thing that ended up being the reason we didn’t get into a long-term.

I SEE. THERE MUST BE TRANS PEOPLE FOR WHO TRANSITIONING WORKED REALLY WELL, AND THEY LOOK GREAT — AND THEN THERE MUST BE PEOPLE WHO HAVE A DIFFICULT TIME BECAUSE THEY MIGHT NOT CONFORM TO PREVAILING STANDARDS OF ATTRACTIVENESS —

Andrea James: Exactly. I’m six-foot-one — I’m very tall, and I have my things that I can’t do anything about, and I sort of deal with those. Yeah, the thing with transitioning is that it’s really not so much a physical thing as it is a social thing. The younger you transition, the more easily it is to become socialized in your target gender. That’s why I like to help young people — because society’s a mirror, and how you move through the world is reflected back to you in other people. If you don’t come across to people as what they expect for a man or a woman, then I think it’s difficult for you personally and psychologically — because you’re not getting the validation of who you feel that you are.

TELL ME ABOUT YOUR WORK WITH THE VOICE. YOU HELP OTHER PEOPLE BY COACHING THEM WITH THEIR VOICES —

Andrea James: Yeah, that’s right. I did a video that’s popular, telling people how to work on sounding more feminine. Just like anything else, it’s an affect — it’s an accent. It’s just basically changing your pitch and raising your resonance, and then knowing these certain kinds of things that distinguish what we consider a male voice and a female voice. That’s what I’m working with — actresses who are playing Trans roles and things like that — which is a nice side part of it.

YOU WORKED WITH THE ACTRESS WHO WAS IN TRANSAMERICA —

Andrea James: Felicity Huffman

HOW WAS WORKING WITH HER?

Andrea James: It was great. She’s a real pro, and she’s a really amazing actor — and to see someone like that consume herself in a role, it’s just really remarkable. That film was shot before Desperate Housewives started airing, so it was one of those flukes where, had Desperate Housewives not gotten so gigantic before the movie was released, it wouldn’t have had such a buzz to it. She did an amazing job, not only on screen but in talking to the media and really trying to get it right, in every aspect of it. It was just a real dream to work with her. I worked with her on the voice — but I mostly worked with her on the character, and gave her some background on what somebody like that would be thinking or dealing with.

ARE THERE SURGICAL PROCEDURES THAT CAN CHANGE THE VOCAL PITCH?

Andrea James: Yeah, there are — but I generally advise against doing it because they’re sort of hit-or-miss, and you still have to do a lot of training afterwards anyway. In a lot of cases it ends up making their voice sound raspy or weird-sounding. I would say it’s a lot like losing weight; it’s like, “Yeah, there’s surgery for that — but it’s better to just do exercises.”

THERE’S PROBABLY PEOPLE WHOSE TRANSITIONS NEVER REALLY END — THERE’S ALWAYS SOMETHING NEW TO ADDRESS IN THEMSELVES, RIGHT?

Andrea James: I don’t know if my transition has ever really ended. I think we’re all transitioning in some way or another the whole time. I’m a different person than I was fifteen years ago — not just in terms of transitioning male-to-female, but in terms of where I am in my life and at my age and my location and all of that. We all have a journey to take — and I just happen to have this interesting aspect that is somewhat unusual.

OKAY. YOU’VE PUT OUT A LOT OF STUFF ABOUT MAKEUP, RIGHT?

Andrea James: Not a lot. We’ve done a makeup video thing, and I have some information on how to do it effectively and quickly and sort-of understanding the basics. I’m not so much a makeup chick as my business partner Calpernia — she’s very good with makeup.

ARE THERE ANY PECULIARITIES FOR THE MAKEUP OF A TRANSSEXUAL PERSON?

Andrea James: I think it just depends on your face shape and your skin condition and all of that. If you’re in the middle of hair removal, obviously there’s some things that you need to deal with that are different than later in your transition. I generally advocate that if you can come to the door with no makeup and a T-shirt and jeans, and answer the door and nobody’s aware that you transitioned — that, to me, is a goal. It’s not about clothes or makeup or anything like that. It’s truly just about how people respond to you.

IS THERE A POINT WHERE ONE GOES OVERBOARD, REALLY OVERDOING IT WITH MAKEUP OR OVERDOING IT WITH SLINKY OUTFITS?

Andrea James: Yeah, and I think everybody goes through that. I always call it “trying on the jewels of youth.” You know, when we’re younger we all try things — some of it works and some of it doesn’t. Then we sort of settle into the thing that works for us. I think I certainly used to occasionally get it wrong in the makeup department or the clothing department — but I think I found a spot that feels right to me, which generally means very little if any makeup, and low maintenance all the way.

WELL, YOU LOOK GREAT IN THE PHOTOS I’VE SEEN OF YOU — SO WHATEVER YOU’RE DOING, KEEP IT UP.

Andrea James: Right on. ~