#willis library

[science70]

Student sleeping on 2nd floor of Willis Library, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, April 1972.

Correction: Thanks to @sciemnific for pointing out that the University of North Texas is in Denton, Texas.

[peopleofdenton]

Kevin, "Trans with Privilege".

"I am a doctoral fellow here at UNT, teaching in the art education program. I'm a 45-year-old man of trans experience. I used to be the director of Denton Transendence, which is a support group for trans people, family, friends, and allies, so it takes a hollistic approach to trans support."

Could you tell me about your experience?

"Well, my book title is Trans with Privilege, and it's one of those things I was thinking about the other day, that there's this sort of narrative that goes around about being trans as if it's this homogeneous experience without taking into consideration intersectionality and how privilege can happen within the trans community. I have to take into account the great privilege I have now walking through life as a heterosexual white man who's highly educated, as opposed to friends I have who transitioned in different ways to where it actually deprivileges them. One of the young adults in my family is a trans woman, and so I have to think about even within my own family, both of our positions have shifted, with me being read as male, and my niece going from male to female. With similar family, neither of us are treated well, but even within that, they'll be more cautious about how they disrespect me, as opposed to how they disrespect her.

Lately I've been reminded of this story where in 1993 my motorcycle broke down on the highway off I-35 & Rosedale in Fort Worth in the middle of the night. I had to try and find a payphone to call some friends to help me out. Walking around at that time & place, alone in the dark, as a fairly small person, being read as female, it wasn't the safest place. When I found a payphone, I realized I had no money. I saw person coming from around the corner of an abandoned building. It was this very tall women in tall heels and a green dress, in the middle of the night, on Rosedale. Sure enough it was a sex worker, but also a trans woman of color. At the time I thought 'I don't want this person near me.' I had a lot of assumptions. They asked me if I needed help, and even though I insisted I didn't, she knew I was scared, and she even knew I was scared of her. She pulled some money out of her purse, and I was able to call my friends. I told her I was fine and she could leave, but she knew things about the area I didn't, and wanted to make sure I was safe while I waited. When my friends pull up, I went to talk to them, and when I turn around, she was already gone. I think she was worried, knowing if I'm afraid of her, who knows what my friends are like, and there's more of us and there's just her. It's interesting to think when we look at trans people, I have what's called 'passing privilege'. Most people have no idea that I'm trans without me telling them. There are so many people who may or may not have passing privilege, which can make things dangerous, especially when sex workers are already targets for violence anyway, and the highest rates of violence are against trans women of color. We often hear about trans people as victims, and here was this woman who stepped up. Didn't know me and made sure that I was safe."

What were some changes in privilege you noticed before & after your transition?

"Oh wow, let's see! I've been a professor for several years, and when I started to transition, I did a little experiment. I was getting emails that were really hostile over little things, and they always start with Ms, Mrs, my first name, or just Hey. They would be really demanding emails, saying 'You need to do this...'. Whatever I wrote back, no matter how professionally written, I would be perceived as a bitch. I changed my name on Blackboard, and started replying to emails as Mr. Jenkins. After about a week, even within the same semester and same group of students, about 80% of the emails changed completely in tone, saying 'Mr. Jenkins, if you get a chance...'

On the other hand, around the same time, I took a night class at TWU. I was walking along the sidewalk after class, a million things going through my head, not thinking of my surroundings, except noticing a girl walking a bit in front of me. I was only 8 months into my transition, and after 42 years of thinking I need to bundle up next to somebody at night for safety, I wasn't thinking about how there was no one around us and I'm walking in pace right behind her. I notice her keep looking around. I thought 'I wonder why she keeps looking over her shoulder like that?' and it suddenly hit me 'Oh my god, it's me! I'm like the creepy guy walking too close!' So I stopped to tie my shoes and let her go on. Those are things I had to stop being aware of. Not that I would do anything, but that's the perception, that I could be that guy who might do something."

[peopleofdenton]

Sian, "Dermatillomania". "Dermatillomania is an obsessive compulsive disorder where the 'sufferer', and I use that term lightly, unconsciously or deliberately scratches at their skin, usually removing scabs, moles, other imperfections, in order to produce a clean flat surface and remove blemishes, even though it creates blemishes. I first became aware of it in high school, when I would get in trouble for having my hand down the back of my shirt during class, just absent-mindedly scratching at acne or scabs. In college it got much worse. Before I pick I generally feel anxious, and I pick to relieve some tension, because it feels good to have a smooth surface. After it got worse in college and my 20's, I went to a doctor and started talking about it and realized there were ways to handle it, to avoid it, to control it. Sitting on my hands is one way. While driving I wear these gloves, because I have a long commute and that's a period where I'm all by myself and my hands are free to wander. Neck, upper chest, back, face, if I'm wearing a skirt, legs. Cruise control can be my enemy because then I can get to both feet. It can be deliberate, like I know I have these two bumps near my shoulder that I will think about during the day and be ready to go get them. Or it may be completely absent minded, where I'll get up from a meeting and have blood spots on my legs. I do take medication for obsessive compulsive disorder, because while this isn't the only manifestation of it, it is the most physically obvious one, resulting in scarring and visible blood. I marked the scars I could see on left side. I try to keep my nailed trimmed short so it's harder to remove things. I use lotion to keep my skin from getting flaky. Long socks help, because you can always pull your pants up. Long sleeves and pants, to try and keep things covered. But in the summer, it's harder. It's not always possible to not search for the bumps."

[peopleofdenton]

Melodee, "Birth Mother". "The theme here is that we're an open book, but I really am an open book. I talk about pieces of my identity all the time, like the necklace I'm wearing is the symbol for adoption. Strangers will ask me about it and I'll tell them I'm a birth mother, I don't keep that part of me a secret." What does it mean to be a birth mother? "A birth mother is sort of the left out member of the adoption triad. When we think about adoption, we generally think about a couple who adopts a baby, or a kid from foster care, or from another country. What we don't generally think about is the woman who gave birth to that child. At 15 I got pregnant, and I made a decision to place my child for adoption. It was an easy and difficult decision, because we were poor. Not like lower middle class poor, we were poor poor. I was still in high school. I'm the youngest of 12, and I'm the only one who graduated high school, the only one in my family to get a bachelors degree, let alone masters, and now I'm working on my PhD. I looked at my world, and the trailer we were living in where the walls were coming apart and my sister who was a teenage mother as well. I said 'This is not what I want for either of us.' And so I started looking into options. I actually went to a teacher who was an adoptive mother to ask her about her experience. I even went through the same organization that she went through to adopt her child to place mine. Back then, adoption doesn't look like it does now. There are birth mothers now who will go visit their kids, or are friends with them on Facebook, and gets the updates like everyone else does and they're a regular part of the kids' life. So back then I got these scrapbooks of information about these families. I was shopping for a family for my kid, which is the weirdest experience ever. There are a lot of socioeconomic problems with adoption, and I fell into those, because I picked a wealthy family. I don't regret that I picked them, but I picked the most opposite family from mine, because I thought that's what was best for my child. I picked them, and met them, and we went to dinner. They were at the hospital when she was born, and got to hold her right after she was born. I signed my rights away 48 hours later, and cried until my eyes swelled shut and didn't sleep the whole night. I pretty much did the same thing even night for months afterwards. I never brought myself to regret it. She is very loved. I love her, her parents love her, but it's weird. There is no script to tell me how I'm supposed to interact with her or the family. One of the reasons I'm writing my dissertation on birth mothers is because I had this life experience where no one is able to tell me how I'm supposed to interact with these people. When writing letters to them I just thought 'I'm 16, what am I going to say to this 41-year-old couple raising a 5-year-old and a newborn? What about my life could be interesting to them?' There's so much uncertainty in how to handle these situations. There are TV shows that show us how to deal with a step family interacting. There's nothing like that for this relationship and what it should look like. We make it up as we go. I'm a huge proponent of talking about stigma. As a communications scholar of stigmatized identities, I understand the power of language and having the words to talk about things. Even when I was 15, I was an open book about what I was going through, because there are a lot of misconceptions about adoption, that I sold her, that I didn't want her, that I didn't did love her, that her birth father didn't want her. There are all these misconceptions and the only way to head that off is to talk about it."

[peopleofdenton]

John, "Scholarly Communication Librarian". "I'm a librarian here. Fairly new. Started last August, and this is my first library job, so I'm still learning my way around. Like a lot of librarians I've met, I'm a second career librarian. I was originally an academic, an English professor, and I did that for 15 years before deciding to go back to school and become a librarian. It was partly motivated by looking for a change of pace, and a new direction that was still in an academic environment. I love teaching, I love learning, and working with students and faculty, so it wasn't a huge leap. It was kind of a hard decision though, mid-career, mid-life. It was kind of intimidating becoming a student again. One of the things I've found is that librarians, unlike a lot of other academics, don't just find a topic and stick to it. It's kind of this ever-evolving learning process. We are constantly having to keep up with new skills, new technologies, new topics. And because we work essentially for the students and faculty, their interests become our interests. We get new people coming in every year asking us new questions, and I find that exciting, never getting stagnant, you're constantly having to readjust." What are some things you wish people knew about librarians? "Pop culture has such a clear idea of what a librarian is. The dowdy old man in a bowtie, or woman in an old-fashioned dress, and they're shushing you, and wiping the dust off of books. I think we're attracted to that because it's nostalgic and reminds us of when we first started learning things. Even I compare myself to Giles. But I think the thing people need to know is that librarians are at the edges of learning at any given time, because they are constantly being pushed to try and find the next new thing, whether it's technology, new information, new types of information, or finding information, new questions. Because those things are constantly changing, librarians are constantly changing with it. As much as we'd like to keep a book museum, and some of us do at home, when we come to work, it's a completely different atmosphere. Sometimes when people come to the Willis Library, they're shocked. They're like 'Where are all the books? All I see are people. and desks, and rooms.' And we'll tell them 'That's what a library is now, an academic library especially.' It's a learning place. It's meant to be an active social space where people are talking, working, trying things, and experimenting. It's a lot more like a laboratory than what you imagine a library might be. So you have a bunch of mad scientists in here, playing and learning."

[peopleofdenton]

Ashley, "Pansexual". "I started identifying as pansexual in high school, and as time has gone on, I've started to fall into the queer category as well, because my experience is really intersectional with different complexes of sexual attraction and romantic attraction and when to divide those and when it's problematic. Pansexuality is an attraction to all genders, not despite or regardless of gender. I don't like to use the word "despite", because gender is not an obstacle to overcome, you don't want to be like 'I love you even though...' So it's all people, of all genders, inside or outside the binary." How did you realize you were pansexual? "I never really had any stipulations to my attraction growing up, and in middle school I was surrounded by all queer people, we just flocked together, and it became normal for me to also be attracted to  women, and androgynous people, and trans masculine people. I don't have this awesome coming out, I just never really questioned it. I never really felt bad about it either, which I'm lucky for. I told my mom about it in an IHOP parking lot, because I figured I should do it in a place she wanted to come back to so she wouldn't make a scene, and she just said 'Am I supposed to be surprised?' I had a crush on this girl and I really needed to talk about it, so I figured I better come out before I burst. After that my mom got really confused when I became interested in a guy. My mom doesn't really understand pansexuality, she thinks I'm bi, because the idea of gender outside the binary is kind of too much for her." So is that the key definition difference? "Well, not really. The traditional definition for bi people is 'men and women', but a lot of the bi people I know in the bi community say 'two or more genders', so not just binary genders. For example, you could be attracted to women, femme people, trans masculine people, but no men. Y'know everything is fake and nothing is real, so it's arbitrary, but yeah the difference is bi people are some and pansexuals are all." What are some of the challenges and misconceptions you deal with? "Bi issues and pansexual issues are very similar, it's just pan gets said a lot less. People think you're greedy, or you're going to cheat. For pan people, there's always the joke that we're attracted to pans. There's the misconception that we want to have sex with literally everyone and everything. And having to explain genders outside the binary can be difficult." What do you want people to know about pansexuality? "It's not a phase people are trying on. It's valid and it's real. It's how some people are. Some people don't take gender into consideration, even though gender is very important when it comes to your partner, you want to be respectful of their gender, it's just not a deciding factor for us. There are more than two genders out there, and some people are attracted to all of them, and that's OK."

[peopleofdenton]

Vanessa, "PTSD". "I came here today to tell my story about PTSD. I'm not a veteran of any kind, I didn't put myself in a situation that would warrant it. It's just from a literal series of unfortunate events in my life. I'm 27 and the only surviving member of my immediate family. My mom, my dad, and my brother have all died at different times in my life from heart attacks. It's like a serial killer almost that's hereditary. How scary is that? Running from something that's in your blood? Another thing, I was living in an apartment building, I heard someone fall. I'm certified in falls prevention, and I saw an elderly man on the ground, so I thought he had fallen and I ran to help him. I wasn't paying attention and didn't notice he already had three gunshot wounds on him. When I went to help him up, he shot himself in the head right in front of me. There was a mom and a child nearby watching, some workers pulling carpet also saw it, but they saw the gun. I didn't see the gun because I was talking to the person and he had it lower. That was a very traumatic experience, because I thought I was going to help him. I've also experienced sexual assault in college. That took a long time to admit, because you don't want to think that someone you know would do that. This last October I lost one of my best friends, who was murdered. That was a time for me where I just said 'I can't bury anybody else. I can't do it.' Just setting that boundary, sometimes you can't do it, even though you want to say goodbye, sometimes you can't. I've tried to cross that boundary before. My mother-in-law's father passed away, and I tried to go into the church and just had a complete panic attack. My body was like 'Nope. We can't put ourselves through this.' Realizing those boundaries, being aware of your limitations and letting other people know what I can do and what I can't. It's been an interesting journey for me, because I've had it since I was a child, but I didn't know until I was officially diagnosed in December. I went into counseling saying 'I think I have this', and after a few months my counselor said 'You were right.' Just because different flashbacks and nightmares. When I was a child my grandpa and grandma died one day apart, and we had a double funeral. That happened in summer, and that August, I didn't talk for the whole month, which is unusual because I'm a chatty Kathy. Going back and talking about those, I realized those were signs. In my community we didn't really want to talk about it. I got labeled as weird. They'd say 'Vanessa's kind of weird'. Well, a lot of people are weird, and I'm pretty weird, but it stems from something much deeper. Actually understanding, and unearthing that has been a learning experience. A lot of times I won't know what's going to affect me until it's happening. A good example is the church I go to is normally in a gymnasium, and when I went to the Christmas service, it was in the sanctuary, and when I went in I noticed that the seat covers are a powder blue. I later realized that the seats at my church growing up were also powder blue. Every funeral I've been to had powder blue seats. I found myself frozen, unable to breath, and then tears running down my face, because I'm suddenly back at a funeral. The triggers can be that subtle. It took me a few days to make that connection and explain it to my husband. I couldn't explain it to him when it was happening because my body was there, but my mind was gone, I was reliving something. There's not a cure for PTSD, but you can overcome it. Maybe figure out your triggers, your coping mechanisms. Yoga and meditation are awesome, but really just owning the trigger helps. Saying 'I can't go in the sanctuary. I can't attend the funeral'. Being honest and open with people I love. Some people accept it and some people don't. They see it as something I'm making up, or something that's just in my head, but it's very real. It's a learning experience for me, and I'm happy to share with others so that they might be able to help someone in their life too."

[peopleofdenton]

Yesterday was one of my favorite events of the year for People of Denton, it was UNT's Human Library. There are multiple people aka "books" from all walks of life, and you can "check them out" by sitting and having a conversation with them and learning about them and their experience.

I love it because I get to learn so much about topics I've never even heard of, and get to hear about surprising and fascinating stories.

Over the next few days I'll be posting interviews with everyone I spoke to. I hope you learn as much as I did.