Interview with Tuesday Meadows, December 11, 2017

POSTON: So Tuesday, painting with broad strokes, tell us about yourself and your early memories.

MEADOWS: Yeah. I'm a transgender woman. I remember as a youngster, uh, certainly by the age of five and a half, I'd knew that there was some difference. I remember asking a group of girls who lived next door if I could play with them, and they said, "no, you can't play with us, you're not a girl." And I said, "I can pretend like I'm a girl." And I remember that coming out my mouth, and it just scared me so bad. And uhm, I said, I can't believe I said that. So I learned to bury that and really keep that really tight within inside me where it wouldn't come out. Plus, I had two older brothers who made it their life's duty to beat the girl out of me. And anytime they saw any femininity in me, they would smack me around pretty good. Their favorite 00:01:00thing was take um, taking my head and dunking it into a toilet. They would do that quite often. Actually, when I was 4 years old, I had long hair, my, my hair grew. You know, in the fifties, you didn't really grow your hair out. But I want to grow my hair out and I had long blonde curls and my brothers held me down and cut my hair off when I was four. And I remember that.

POSTON: So this happened in the context of Kentucky, right?

MEADOWS: Yes.

POSTON: What is your--

MEADOWS: I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, in the west end of Louisville. And it was a very unique community. Uh, it was almost entirely a Catholic community, there was very few Protestant families. We was one of the few Protestant families that lived in the West End. It was all white. Um, pretty soon um, there was the urban flight that happened in the sixties. Um, by the time um, before my 00:02:00family moved to Lexington, when I was in eighth grade, um, my class was predominantly black. Um, I, um. There was in my homeroom classes there was three white kids, including me. So it, it, um it was very, um, very challenging for me because it felt like I was always a minority. Even, even when I was a white minority, I was still a minority. And, you know, I learned to get along with people. And I learned to um, stay low, keep a low profile. But it was an interesting childhood.

POSTON: Have you spent most of your life in Kentucky?

MEADOWS: I've spent my entire life in Kentucky. When I was fourteen, my family moved to Lexington and I stayed in Lexington through college and UK. And I moved back to Louisville in the eighties for five years, and then I moved back to Lexington. So just those, those are the only two places I've ever lived

POSTON: It's a state that has you.

MEADOWS: Yep.

POSTON: So we know for many LGBTQ folks, the first time that someone comes out is a significant life milestone. What can you tell us about your coming out experiences and how your your understandings and articulation of your identity have changed over time?

MEADOWS: Yeah, I was very late in life coming out and like I said, I kept it very guarded. And, and I've heard this from other transgender people that, you know, you start to come out, you even heard it from Caitlyn Jenner. If you paid attention where you attempt to come out and it just it's not going to work. And I did the same thing, I probably tried to come out two or three times. And finally, um, when I fifty nine and a half, I said, I'm getting ready to be sixty. This is my last chance to do this, you know, to be me. And so I did. 00:04:00And then it, it, I've done it since. So it, it stuck that time. But it was not without peril. You know, I was married at the time, so that was always a concern. You know, I had, I have a child. I have family. And it um, it was, it was challenging on a lot of, um, of different levels. I think, um, the biggest was getting everybody to understand that, that this is the real me, and, you know, people were hurt. They thought I lie, I had lied to them, and be honest with you, I did lie to them to protect me and protect my family. So it was it was um, very interesting, that dynamic between people who I had known for thirty years and people I loved, my family who had known me my whole life. And they all said, why didn't you tell us, you know, why didn't you tell me? You know, 00:05:00or you know, and I said I didn't tell anybody. And so it, it took them a little while and I took, hm, I took even that late in life, that fifty-nine and a half, I took a good solid year and a half to transition completely.

POSTON: What made you feel at 60 like this is if you're ever going to--

MEADOWS: (sigh)

POSTON: --do it, this is the last time you could.

MEADOWS: Well, at forty-three, I had a quadruple bypass and my doctor told me that that would probably buy me ten years. So this was almost seven years after about ten years. And I just said, you know, I don't know how much longer I'm going to live. And luckily, I had some time to do this. But it was you know, I just saw the clock ticking away and I wanted to at least spend some of my life being honest and being true, being me.

POSTON: So in um, in those moments of coming out, um, you've talked about 00:06:00protecting your family and having, you know, some folks act in ways that you wish they hadn't. Did you have a religious community that you had an experience with and it was that supportive or not?

MEADOWS: Yes. I've been a member of church since I was an infant. I was raised Southern Baptist. And my mom, like I said, we we had six kids in our family, so, you know, we were a very religious family and very close. Um, and then as we grew up, my family kind of, I think, I don't think any of us are Southern Baptists now. We all just went different directions. I became a Methodist because the girl I married, she was Methodist, and it didn't seem like the dogma was that much different. So I had started this church, um, in 1973, a couple of years before we got married. And so I had gone to this church 00:07:00for four years, a Methodist church, and we were married there in 1976, me and my wife. And in 2013, I went and talked to my preacher and said, by the way, I am transitioning. And, you know, my wife knows. And she's supportive, because she's always known. Because I told her, you know, I'd never lie to her. I'd lied to a lot of people, but I'd never lied to her. And he said, you know, I don't have a problem with you being transgender, but the congregation will never accept you. And I kept waiting for the "but", "but I'll be there for you", and I never heard that. And that was his last words, was that they wouldn't accept me. And so I got up and walked away from that meeting and never went back. And nobody from the church ever called 00:08:00me. My wife died in 2015. Nobody from the church came to her funeral, the church that she had gone to for forty years. Um, I was shocked and saddened, but I think that in the long run, it opened my eyes to religion. Um, it to me, it, at least these type of religions, these big religions, are a business. And I was not good for their business.

POSTON: Sad.

MEADOWS: Yes, it is very sad. And you know, I'm tough, I'm tough as nails. You didn't. People who know me will tell you I'm tough as 00:09:00nails. I was hurt for my wife. I was hurt for her. When I went home and told her, I said, well, the preacher said the congregation wouldn't accept me, so I don't see how I can go back. And she looked at me and she said, you know, if they don't want you, they don't want me either. And she said, you're more important to me than they are. And so she was totally supportive, and she never blinked an eye, you know? But I was so sad. And when she died, she wanted a Methodist preacher to preach her funeral. And I had to go to another church to find a youth pastor that had gone to high school with my daughter to do the sermon. And he is down at, um, First Methodist. And he came and did Linda, did a beautiful service, which she would have wanted. And I was 00:10:00so thankful for that. But even he, I think, had to kind of go against the grain. And he, he didn't play it up very much. But he, he like I say, he had known my daughter from high school. And he came to our house probably six or seven times before my wife died and got to know her. And so, um, and, you know, sat there with my daughter and my wife, and we'd sit there, chat and talk, talk about religion and what God and Christ and what it all means. And, you know, the things that our preacher of fifteen years should have done and who didn't, and that we had to go find somebody. And it really wasn't that easy to find anybody. So I was I was glad of that. Not not for me, but for my daughter and for Linda. You know, you sit there and it-- I still feel like I'm a 00:11:00Christian. I'm just unchurched.

POSTON: So as, as influential maybe as religion has been in your story, in your wonderful life, this institution, University of Kentucky, has also played a role, right?.

MEADOWS: Yes.

POSTON: So tell us about your time, your earliest memories of UK and your time as a student here.

MEADOWS: Oh, my, my my UK career is very colorful. I actually started when I was a junior in high school. I was involved with the anti-war protest, um, the Vietnam War was going on pretty strong. It really had a big cloud, dark cloud on my generation. And some friends of mine said, let's go down and join the protests that were happening at UK, in 1970. I remember coming down on 00:12:00Limestone, you know, where the Administration Building is, and us standing in front of the Administration Building, probably three to five hundred people in, on the lawn that day. And the National Guard was standing around the administration building with fixed bayonets and they looked like they were eight foot tall. For one thing, we was on the bottom of the hill and they's on top of the hill, but they just looked very, very imposing. Later on that day or next day, we heard that they actually had had live ammunition. It had been just right after Kent State, where four students had gotten killed. And, um, you know, it was very trying, very tumultuous, and that was when I was a junior in high school. But, you know, most of us, especially us kids who were very poor or 00:13:00didn't have a lot of funds, UK was our only option. You know, we worked. And that's what I did, I had a full time job and I worked and went to school. Um, and I um, started in 1971, I was kicked out a year later for social probation and academic probation because I wasn't very, I didn't really try very hard. So that was when I was nineteen, and, and when I said I was kicked out, I don't know what the rules are now, but then you had stay out for a year. And so I stayed out for a year. And when I came back, I had to say the dean who told me not to come back. And so he was actually on sabbatical. And I went to the dean who was there relieving him. And I said, I'd like to come back 00:14:00to school. And he said I see no reason why you can't do this; it's probably the first piece of encouragement I had ever had, ever in academics, always through public school and everything. Somebody actually said that they thought I could do the work. And it inspired me. About that time I started dating my future wife. And it seemed like my whole life kind of settled down. I started doing well in school. My senior year I made a 4.0. I started graduate school and then I got a job in management with the Kroger company, which I stayed with for forty years. And I didn't get to finish graduate school. But it was um, an interesting career and I loved it all. Even, even I loved getting kicked out, partly I think it was a kick in the pants for me a little bit. But the encouragement when I came back was priceless. And I had encouragement from my 00:15:00wife and I had encouragement from somebody in academics for the first time ever. And I don't know what he saw because he looked at my grades and they weren't very pretty. But he says, I don't see any reason why you can't do this work. And I had never, ever in my life felt smart. I'd always felt like, um, I wasn't very bright because I'm sure I was trouble. You know, I had A.D.D. most of my, most of my life. Of course, it wasn't diagnosed, I wasn't diagnosed until I was an adult. And then, you know, I realize now I also had gender dysphoria and those things played into my school career all the way through. And I went to public schools and we I was a baby boomer. And there's-- they went from having classes of twenty-two kids to 00:16:00having classes of thirty-five and thirty-seven kids. So it was a very tough time to come through public schools. And at that time, UK had to accept you. And there was a, the, UK had a big surge that, those couple years, you know, the late seventies, a lot of people were getting out of the Army and coming to school and um, so they had a big surge, and so there was a lot of people here that didn't want you. So you'd never felt ever through school that you were wanted. And that one little brief moment, that one encounter I had with the dean of the Business School changed my life.

POSTON: So you talked a bit about, you mentioned your career--

MEADOWS: Yeah

POSTON: --with Kroger and how that was a part of getting you through--

MEADOWS: Yeah

POSTON: --getting you through undergrad, but also something that you made a forty-year career out of. Tell us more about that.

MEADOWS: Yeah, um, I started when I was 16 as a bagger. And, you know, worked my 00:17:00way up to a full-time job. I cut meat for three years, which is an awful job. I mean, you can't feel your fingers, you know. They just so cold, icy cold, cut, cutting meat all day, um, but I was making a lot of money in you know, I was making $10 an hour in 1972, which, you know, was just a ton of money. And my, my, I'd done it for about a year or two, it was pretty tiring. And I had a brother who just graduate from UK. And he had done, he had done the same thing. He had worked his way through school. And he told me, he says, you're never going to be happy unless you have an education. You're never going to be happy as long as you're punching a clock. And so he kind 00:18:00of, he kind of inspired me to go back to school. I didn't have much reason to come back school, but when I came back, I did, did do better and asked and I was actually working full-time then with Kroger. And um, soon as we-- we actually had a strike. Our, our company went out on strike. And I was a shop steward. I was as the head union person in our store. And so I kept our crew together. We only had two people in our whole store to cross the picket line. I kept everybody happy and just working. And um, our zone manager came to me and said "I was very impressed with how you conducted yourself during the strike. And I'd like you go into management" and they didn't take a lot of people into management. As a matter of fact, I was the first person who had been out on strike that they took in management. And then I got a store very quickly and I 00:19:00went into merchandising and advertising in Louisville. That's when I moved back to Louisville, to Louisville in the eighties. And I really loved that, but it was a little too much politics for me. And I asked to come back out to the stores and they sent me back to Lexington. And that's where I finished up my career. I was in Richmond, Versailles, all around Lexington. I loved it. I loved the people. I loved my customers. I loved my employees. It was just, I, uh, it was a great career. And I love Kroger today.

POSTON: So you, you have spent many years here in Lexington--

MEADOWS: Yes

POSTON: your whole life in Kentucky, so many years of it in Lexington.

MEADOWS: Yes

POSTON: So beyond the university, what have been your experiences living in broader Lexington? And in thinking about that, what are the spaces that have 00:20:00been most engaging or welcoming and what have been the spaces that have maybe been the most problematic and exclusive?

MEADOWS: Well well, like I say, Lexington, is a very unique community. It's, um, I guess if I put a theme on, I had my work career where I worked very hard. I had a, I had a domestic life. Then I had another life in between there, and I guess, um, if you had to put a, put a title on each one of those, the one in the middle, I would call drugs, sex, and other activities--(laughs). And it was a, we, um, we always said we worked very hard and we played very hard. And Lexington was a pretty wild place in the seventies, eighties. 00:21:00There's a lot of drugs, there's a lot of club-hopping and things. And my generation, my group, we, um, we ran in Lexington pretty hard. I didn't really know much of the LGBT community. You know, I know that was going pretty strong, down at Johnny Angels, but there was still a lot of LGBT people, you know, course we just call it the gay, the gay population. And we, we interacted a lot with the gay population. They were very mainstream, much more mainstream in the seventies. I think actually, um, in the eighties, I think the AIDS epidemic really kind of hurt that interaction between the straight community and the gay community. But in the seventies, it was very, very open. There was Derby 00:22:00parties. Anita Madden's Derby Party was infamous for, you know, just being wild and lots of LGBT people mingling with the straight population. When you go out to clubs, there was always, the you know, there was, seemed like there was always gay men and lesbian women. You know, you might be sitting at a table, and there was a big group next to you. You know, it wasn't, it really wasn't segregated in Lexington as much as some people think it was. We was really, really intermingled, especially in the seventies. The clubs like the Library, you know, down on Woodland Avenue was, was a "disco", if, you know, I know disco sounds like a funny word, but it was a disco. And it was students, community, straight people, LGBT people just all intermingled. A lot of cocaine, 00:23:00you know, that that flowed very freely in the seventies. It was, um, it was a little bit Wild West. I remember in 1978 when UK won the national championship, we was actually at the Library and we hadn't won a championship in twenty years. And it was very, very wild night. Um, it was, it, it, it was an interesting time. It really was. And like I say, I think the, the community and UK and, were, found places to meet. And I like those places. I like places where the community and UK met. There is certainly a lot of places where they separated. Two Keys was a pretty cool place. And there's, you know, we went 00:24:00there quite a bit in the seventies, you know. Now I'm talking about the late seventies, after I graduated. I graduated in '77 and early eighties. So, you know, even after you graduated, you still kind of came back to the place around UK. Those are the places I went to. Now, there was other places that were kind of out in the suburbs that were pretty, pretty, pretty cool and pretty fun. But I always seemed to gravitate toward the places that were close to UK.

POSTON: So, um, the bar scene you're describing seems like a more or less accepting, open scene.

MEADOWS: I think the bar scene in the late seventies, early eighties was very, very open and very accepting. I personally believe that the AIDS epidemic kind 00:25:00of took a, took a chunk out of that. The cocaine scene in Lexington got, started getting shut down in the eighties. Um, if you want to read a book, read The Bluegrass Conspiracy and it'll tell you a little bit about the cocaine scene in Lexington. But it was, um, you know, there's a lot --(laughs)-- of people involved, you know, I'll say, I'll say allegedly, allegedly the police were involved with the cocaine scene. I can neither confirm nor deny that. But it was a-- I think that fueled a lot of the acceptance. I think, you know, we all kind of felt like we were outlaws. We all felt like we you know, whether you was gay or lesbian or, you know, straight and you, you were in that scene, you felt 00:26:00somewhat like an outlaw. And I think we had that in common.

POSTON: So were there any spaces you encountered that were regularly negative spaces to be in places where you couldn't find anything in common or you weren't treated well because of something someone perceived about you, right, knowing you weren't out in many spaces at that time?

MEADOWS: I think, you know, of course, like I say, I was getting older, you know, I turned thirty in '83, so you know that, that that tends to change things anyway. So but I think also you think about '83, '84, AIDS was really starting to get heard about a lot. And everybody started known someone who had died or whatever. I had a friend who died of AIDS. Actually, he actually killed himself 00:27:00after he, he contracted AIDS. But still, he died of AIDS. And I think it affected all of us. I think, you know, my generation had come out of the Vietnam War and we'd survived. And then also, you know, you think, oh, well, we made it, we're good. And then also when that happens and, you know, in the early 80s, no, you know, even though there's people say it was a gay disease, nobody knew. Nobody knew that, that, that was what it was, you know. Any-- we just didn't know it. And you didn't know how you got it. I think it, it killed a lot of the bar scenes, you know, about that time mid-eighties, whatever, the cocaine scene in Lexington, dried-up. I think, um, it is, there's a lot of negativity, a lot of bars started closing down in the late 00:28:00eighties. You know, they survived for about five or six years. The places that were discos or whatever, they, they um, they started closing down. So, so there was, um, it was it is a real sea change that people don't realize that Lexington was pretty wild and open in the seventies and and then through the eighties was pretty, you know, OK, then, but as the eighties kind of left, it just really started shutting down. And in the nineties, what kind of took its place was like neighborhood bars and things like that. So it wasn't that one place that everybody had to go. You know, in the seventies, there was one or two places everybody who was anybody went to. And then the eighties, those places kind of started going away. And I think at that same time, you saw, and I 00:29:00assume that maybe like the gay lesbian groups started going to different bars, probably where they felt safer. I'm thinking that they were probably alienated from those bars because of the perceived, "oh, don't sit on that toilet seat, somebody gay might have sat on it", or at one time, there's people saying, "if you breathe their air, you know, you're go get AIDS". And so I think that all, that segregated, everything, it seemed to split that that group away from the straight group. Like I say, and I hung out with, everybody I hung out with was with the straight, hetero crowd. So I'm thinking that that had an effect on Lexington that really nobody saw, you know, 00:30:00it because it was really you know, there's no signs. You know, "we don't serve gays" or, you know, in the sixties, "we don't serve blacks". You know, there was no, none of that. But it was like, I guess, the negativity, it got so bad that they just felt like they needed to go to their own spaces.

POSTON: So the finding your own space reminds me of um, or makes me wonder about just the word "transgender". Can you remember the first time you were, you either heard the word or, or were first connected that with, like, oh, this is who I am.

MEADOWS: Well, you know, and I want to connect a little bit with what we just talked about with Lexington. And, um, the thing about we saw cross-dressers, we saw gender benders, you know, and we I don't remember thinking anything 00:31:00about it. You know, far as those people, you know, being out and being mingling with everybody, we just, it didn't really phase us, you know. Most of us had a live and let live kind of attitude. Like I say, this was in the seventies and then and in eighties that, that, that changed a little bit. Um, the first, you know, I heard of Christine Jorgensen, I heard of Renée Richards, that was about the only two. And it seems so foreign. You know, I knew that I had a feminine side. I knew that there was something really, really there. And I never could put my finger on it. It wasn't till I was about twenty-eight that I really figured it out. I said, this is way more than just a feminine side. This is this is really who I am. And it was tough. I told my wife, I said, you know, 00:32:00you remember I told you I had a feminine side and I like wearing women's clothes. I said, it's more than that. I said, you know, really, I am a woman. I didn't have anybody to say "like", you know, I just said "I am". And we separated twice in that period of time. Because, you know, she said she needed to figure it out and I can't blame her from for that. She, um, she ended up kind of reconciling it in her mind and called me up and we got back together and stayed together for the next 30 years. But, uh, it was, there was no role models. Anything that we heard or that you read about, like I said, I gave you a couple of examples. There was a few others. But most of them were foreign. You 00:33:00know, it was, and I don't mean -- New York City was foreign, you know, that was a million miles away. As a matter of fact, that's, I believe to this day that my friend who died of AIDS, I believe he was transgender. And he left Lexington because he said this is no place for me. And his parents rejected him and he moved to New York City. I believe he moved New York City to transition. And I lost track of him. But then in 1988, I heard that he had killed himself. So I think people who did transition, I think they did in the eighties and even in the seventies, they, they couldn't stay where they grew up. They couldn't stay where they had been a community member. They need to go to California or New York, course here, and here, I think New York had, had 00:34:00probably the biggest magnet cause it was closer. But I think there was no there was no way nobody. There's no way anybody would stay and transition like they do now. Like, like I did, you know, in 2013. I believe that, um, you would absolutely have to leave. Even, even here at UK they were doing surgery in the late seventies, gender confirming surgery. Now it was all federal program where they was getting, you know, it was research on it. And it-- but here at UK'd had actually gotten a pretty decent reputation of doing gender confirming surgery and Lexington was a very gay friendly town. I believe people actually came here from other places to live at that time. You know, especially if you trans-- if 00:35:00you was transgender and you lived in eastern Kentucky, you came to Lexington to live. You know, you left Pikeville or you left Whitesburg and you came here and you started a new life. And Lexington was pretty accepting and open. It had always had a very good reputation for being gay and lesbian friendly. And it got that in the fifties with, you know, the groups that kind of blazed that, that, that those trails. Lexington had a, had a person, Sweet Evening Breeze who was trans. And they, um, they blazed a lot of territory. Lot of jokes. You know, there's a lot of, Sweet Evening was the punchline for a lot of, a lot of 00:36:00jokes. And I can't imagine how tough they were. And, you know, um, you know, there's some people that said that she was intersex, but I don't know that. But it was it was really-- I like the reputation that Lexington had of being that open, being that accepting and the fact that UK was doing gender confirming surgery.

What? What? How cool is that? That here we are in the South, it's probably the only school in the South that was doing that. And things like that give you a great reputation with the whole world as being open and being a cool place. You know, um, there's a lot of movie stars came to Lexington to hang out, just to hang out because of the gay scene. And like I say, when we went out in the 00:37:00seventies and early eighties, we didn't think anything about it. Although there was a very strong gay bar scene, too, at that time. So it was a, it was pretty cool. As far as me, you know, I didn't have much as far as knowing what it was. And by the nineties there was a lot more information when the Internet came along. I was just, the Internet was a godsend for all of us transgender people because it gave you really good, it was my first community, you know. In ninety five was when my feelings to transition really got strong. And um, shortly thereafter I had my heart surgery, so I kind of put it on hold. But um, it really by the mid-nineties the Internet and information really 00:38:00started to flow about about transgender issues and it was really just a godsend, especially for somebody that didn't know what the heck was going on.

POSTON: So I imagine the Internet plays into this next question and in some some central ways too. Tell us about your LGBTQ advocacy and activism, and what groups you've been involved with locally or regionally or nationally.

MEADOWS: So so, 2012 I start taking hormones and in 2013 was my transition year. But, you know, I looked around and I wanted a role model. I wanted a mentor. I wanted somebody local that I could really look up to. And there was nobody. There was a group, TransKentucky, which was very good. I started going there in 00:39:002013, a support group, and I love them. They're a great group, but very many in 2013, not very many of them were out. There was really nobody talking about the issues. You know why we can't trans-- transition? You know, why, why we were stifled? Why? You know what? Why things were not what they should be for our community. And I just decided, you know, I'm retired. I don't have a career to worry about. I retired early. I had retired at fifty-six, which, you know, my goal was to retire young and transition. It took me three more years after that to get around, to get to it. I had some other things come 00:40:00up. It's just like a series of holds. You know, hold, hold, hold, hold! So, but, but I held one more time. But at this time, at fifty-nine and a half, I said, You know what? There are no role models there are no mentors. I'll do it, you know. And it's not because I want to be known or I want to be famous or I want to be somebody or I want to be on the news. I think really deep down I didn't want to do all that stuff. I wanted somebody else to do it. But I went through the process. Somebody ought to do this. And then when I went to TransKentucky I said, you know, we ought to do this, and then I came to the conclusion I ought to do this. And so I did. I started getting involved. I got involved with the TranKentucky first. Then that worked into the private 00:41:00community service organization, which is also the Pride Center. Um, and I'm on their board. That transitioned into working on the Pride Fest, which I'm the assistant chair of the Pride Fest, then that worked in to writing for Linked Magazine, which I am now the assistant editor for and I've been writing a column now for three and a half years. That transition into working with Lexington Fairness, who does advocacy. And that worked into working with the Pride Cats and the LGBTQ Resources Center here at UK and a couple other groups that I do work with. So it really is one of those things that I really never 00:42:00planned to do. And even when I started writing, I told myself, I'll write for a few months and then somebody who can actually write will come along and take my place. That's been three and a half years ago. I always say, the, the graveyard's full of people who can't be replaced. I know I can be replaced by somebody. But, but I do it. Because I feel like somebody has to. And I would love for younger people to get involved and do it. And I'd still like to be involved. But I did it out of necessity and it probably saved me too, saved my life. My daughter who loves me, and she says, you know, I knew 10 years 00:43:00ago that, you know, not to. I told her, you know, when she was in college that I was trans. And I told her that I would transition someday, but, you know, I just didn't know when. She said, you know, I didn't mind you transitioning, this was in 2013. But did you had to become Tuesday Princess Warrior? You know what? I did have to. Somebody had to. So I had to. I had to. I had to do it. Any time you step up, you're going to have criticism. You know, people criticize me for my voice. Um, my hands are too big. My feet are too big. My nose is too big. You know, you get a lot of, a lot of criticism. You know, and you can't let that criticism stop you. You know, you just got to take it with stride and say, OK, so my nose is too big, you know? So? So my voice is too 00:44:00deep? I've still going to fight for our community. I'm not going to let those things stop me. I'm going to keep doing what I have to do as long as I can do it. I don't know how many years I have, but I hid too long. You know, I was scared. I hid. And I'm not going to hide a more. I'm going to be front and center. I'm going to be out there leading the charge. Um, I'm going to do whatever I have to do to make it better for the next generation. And there's a lot of people who want to push us back. And there's a lot of pushback now. Um, so we have a fight and it's a fight for our lives. It's a fight for a lot of young people's lives. And I'll keep fighting as long as I've got, got a breath in me.

POSTON: So you, you mentioned sort of the current state and especially, you know, what it means to be LGBTQ or trans in 2017. Um, so tell us what excites you for the future and maybe what scares you about--

MEADOWS: Yeah.

POSTON: --the future and the present?

MEADOWS: Yeah. You know, um, I try to check my emotions and try to figure out where my emotions are about things, you know, and you, you know. Most people who know me have seen me angry, you know, that seems to be a very easy emotion to tap into. Um, but some of the other emotions are a little bit tougher, you know. And the one that really has been a long time coming for me, the, the emotion is I'm embarrassed for our state. I really am. And I've always loved 00:46:00Kentucky. I love my home. I love UK. I love everything about, I mean, I just do. But, at this moment in history, I'm embarrassed. You know, somebody looks at this tape 20 years from now. The emotion I'm tapping into is I'm embarrassed for the way we are treating people who are different. Um, all marginalized people right now, you know, are being treated very roughly. Um, we're being targeted by people who are in office. And, and, and it's not a Democrat or Republican thing. It's, it's, it seems to be really a thing where people are doing this to get votes, you know, especially when you 00:47:00talk about, oh, there's going to be men in the women's bathroom, which is, um, really a horrible thing. You know, I've been asked that. Well, what do you think about it? And you sit there and say, that is such a lie, it's such a straw man, um, argument. And you sit there. And I don't know that these politicians believe it, but they know that it gets votes. They know that it drums up money. And to me, that's pure evil, that's pure evil when you're when you're picking on somebody because they're marginalized or a minority and you're using them to get votes. I'm getting into another emotion, I'm getting angry. So I go right from embarrassment back to angry about that, because I think "use it". You know, and it's, it's the same people who used black people in the sixties. You know, "oh, 00:48:00if we let these black people come sit at our lunch counter, next thing you know, they'll be marrying your daughter", you know? And I heard it. I heard it back in the sixties. You know, I heard the slurs. I heard that. And you'd ask, I'd ask my parents, I say, so what's so bad about me marrying a black person? "Oh, the children. It's not you. It's the children." Which was a straw man argument, just like they are now. And you hear those lies. It just makes me so mad.

POSTON: So in the last couple of years, bathrooms have certainly been a major conversation point, and trans-advocacy in that area is impacting trans-well-being for sure. Have you had any situations around restrooms personally that, that have been troubling or sort of been a, you know, connected 00:49:00to this broader conversation?

MEADOWS: Yeah. You know, and, and like, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty tough. And I'm six foot tall, so you know, I stand up pretty, pretty tall. But, but I carry myself well. And, and I don't look, um, um for somebody to be looking at me, I don't care if they look at me. You know, if that's if they, they want to give me the side eye or whatever, you know, knock yourself out. I do not look for validity from strangers, you know. But sometimes things happen. Um, one instance where I was using a public restroom and a lady, um, this was actually in Chicago. And a lady came in after me and was knocking on every stall door and saying, "You're in the wrong bathroom." And I was, and this you know, this I had been using-- this was probably, 2014. So I had been 00:50:00using the women's restroom for two years. And it kind of-- I didn't realize that she was after me. And another lady came out her stall and start screaming at her and told her to get out of the restroom. And so I was appreciative of that. But, um, I guess that was my first encounter where I had somebody happen. The worst one, and I had a couple of smaller instances, but the worst one was in Flagstaff, Arizona, where me and my granddaughter was using the restroom. And a gentleman actually came in, well, after, after us with a gun. I don't know, I don't know what his purpose was. And my six year-old granddaughter, at the time, says he was the one in the wrong bathroom, you know, and she was right. And she was - she wasn't scared. But I was scared. As a 00:51:00matter of fact, I covered her up because I thought he might shoot through the stall door. But he, he ended up leaving after he heard my granddaughter scream at him. But it was scary. And, you know, those things play on your mind that, you know, that they can happen any time. And then you, um, it keeps some people-- I'm sure it has kept some people from transitioning. You know, the threat of not being to use a public restroom. Uh, and, you know, I've heard tons of other, you know, where especially schools, where they won't let a child use, uh, use their proper bathroom, you know, or uh the proper restroom for their gender. You know, some of these transgender, like that one transgender girl I know is eight years old. What's going to happen? You know? What, 00:52:00what could they possibly be worried about? You know, if she uses a stall, I don't, I don't understand it. And so, uh, I think a lot of that plays on us, plays on our mind that it can happen at any time. I hear a lot of people say they-- people have said things to them right here in Lexington. I've heard people say, you know, they get a lot of looks, a lot of glances. I don't look for that. So I don't really necessary worry about it. But it, it, it plays on your mind every time you use the restroom. Every single time. You never know. I mean, I've walked into a restroom and saw a child in there. I saw, you know, walk in and see a twelve year-old. And it scares me, I, I usually turn around, walk out, just because it scares me so bad. Uh, it, it, it, it's a, it's a, it really plays on your mind that at anytime that 00:53:00you're out and you have to use the restroom, that something awful could happen. --(Meadow's stomach growls)--(Poston laughs) You'll have to edit that out! (both laugh)

POSTON: You're getting a little hungry. So as--

MEADOWS: I told you I didn't eat breakfast! (both laugh)

POSTON: As, uh, --(both laugh) --

MEADOWS: --I just proved it!

POSTON: --you need to get you some breakfast! So as we wrap up, what do you what do you wish we'd asked that we hadn't?--

MEADOWS: --oh, gosh--

POSTON: --or that we, that we haven't yet.

MEADOWS: You know, uh, we really didn't talk about the future. And, I think we can really make a difference. We're, we're, uh, at a, we're at a tipping point. And I think we, ones like me, I hate to say "we" because I need 00:54:00to put that on me, and that's, you know, I take personal responsibility for that. I've told people that I'm, I'm a little bit disappointed in my generation that we haven't fixed racism. We haven't fixed war. There's a lot of things we haven't fixed, but we still have time. And the one thing we can fix easy to me, easy fix, is accept LGBT people as, as equals. You know, make, make everything, make equality, make it real true equality. Whereas there's nobody who's denying us marriage license, where there's nobody denied us jobs. Or you can transition on the job and not worry about losing your job. You can go out and look for an apartment and 00:55:00not worry about somebody turning you down because you're transgender. You know, we need a statewide fairness ordinance. Sure. For sure. In this state, we need uh, and everybody says we're asking for special privileges. And that's not right. We're not asking, we're asking for equality. And I'm really kind of tired of asking for it, I'm ready-- I want to demand it. I want to demand equality for us. And, saying that somebody should have the right to turn me down to bake my wedding cake because I'm transgender. I don't think they should have a license to, to uh, be in business. To me, that's discriminatory. It's clearly discriminatory. I don't, don't, you know, if you don't want me to go to your church. That's fine. I won't go to your church. But if you've got a business, you 00:56:00need to take care of people who come to your business and want a product. You need take care of business. You need to take care of everybody who wants to come in and eat at your restaurant. You need to take care of everybody comes into your place and says they want surgery or I go to the emergency room, I don't want to, I don't think a doctor should tell me that he's not going to take care of me because I'm trans. Because he, it's against his religion. Or if, uh, I, if I need whatever I need from people that I don't get turned down just because I'm trans. You know, you don't have to like me. We're not, we don't have to be buddies. But you do have to take care of me because I'm a human being, just like everybody else. And if I come into your place of business, if you want to be in business, 00:57:00you don't have to be in business. Go, go do something else, start a church. I won't go to your church. But if you're going to be in business, you should take care of everybody.

POSTON: Beautifully said. Well, thank you, Tuesday.

MEADOWS: Thank you, Lance.