Paulette de Coriolis and Susan Keene

00:05 My name is Susan Keen. I am 54 years old today's date is August 16th, 2015. We're in Seattle Washington and my relationship to my interview partner is that we're good friends.

00:18 And my name is Paulette the Coriolis. I am 68 years old. Today's date is August 16th, 2015. We're in Seattle Washington. And Susan is a good friend.

00:33 I will high pollen by Susan start out, but you just telling us a little bit about yourself. So just before we came in I was talking about my two big things identities as they were so one is a mental health counselor in training and the other is that I'm a transgender woman in one sentence in one sentence has quite a bit. That's quite a bite. Yeah. Yeah. I find you an intensely interesting person. I'm really happy. We have the chance to do this today. Thank you about when you first realized either one of those things about yourself you that you were transgender or that you were a that you were mental health therapist now will the two are connected. So have you been a former engineer a retired engineer? I tend to think chronologically and I first remember something about age 7

01:28 I think that's when my mother caught me with some of her clothes and then

01:35 I was pretty deep in the closet starting early. I knew I knew that it was inappropriate for a boy to be wanting to wear mom's clothes or I don't have a sister so it wasn't sister's clothes and I'm then at 8:13. I saw my first role model of a crossdresser Norman Bates. Oh my in the Hitchcock film psycho. Norman Bates is not a very good role model for anyone. No, no and you know, I unconsciously process today. It was too scary to consciously process. If you know am I going to grow up to be a psychopathic killer the scary thought so a lot happened. I had a successful career as a medical electronics engineer. I was married twice once for 4 years once for 20 years and then in

02:34 2000 year 2003 things happened serendipitously. One of them was my favorite article on my favorite magazine Scientific American published an article, which was a short bio on Lincolnway who's the transgender woman and a significant person in the development of micro electronic computer chips. Someone would probably never heard of but there she is in Scientific American he had assigned I knew who it was probably Dad. Yeah, and it was my favorite magazine and it was you no one page of her personal life, which is her journey as a transgender person and one page of her technical accomplishments.

03:19 And that was

03:22 Dad and my spiritual teacher I saw him in December and

03:29 Seattle and you told a story he tells lots of stories but the message is always the same is that pieces inside of us?

03:40 And he told a story about a prostitute and at the end of it is like, oh my if his tent is big enough for prostitute is big enough for me, but that's how I felt about my transmission at that point. Wow. Yeah, so that must have been quite a realization for you that there was room for you in the tent if I came out I would be

04:08 Well, we don't do what some Churches do wishes excommunication that I would not be welcome anymore. And that was not the case at all. And the next time I saw him I came to the event as Paulette.

04:24 And as time progressed I spent more time is Paulette and less time in what we sometimes refer to his boy mode until I retired from my career as a as an engineer the day after my retirement party. It was full-time Paulette from then on scene ever transition that your day job. No, I didn't but I told some of my friends there and at that point I shaved off my beard and that's probably hard to imagine looking at me like that really hard to imagine you with a beard. I was just thinking that now and I got my ears pierced and I did laser on my face to get rid of the rest of the dark facial hair and you know some of that some of the folks they're kind of noticed some changes. Yeah. One of them said, you know, I noticed gestures as well and I didn't know the

05:24 That was leaking through but you know, it's tough living a dual life where I was a guy at work and I was Paul at everywhere else with my friends with my family at the bank at the dry cleaners at the grocery store. That sounds painful that just sounds so hard to do and how much energy you have to put into doing that exact. Yeah. This was in 2010 years to transition from 2000 to 2010. So it wasn't a quick process. No, no.

06:01 In especially for someone in older person. We've built a life with an identity of of being a male and transitioning shakes a lot of their identity up one of the things that it meant was the end of my 20-year marriage come out to your wife that way it was it was we fought for two years before we separated. I just admire your courage and your ability to stick to this is who I am and I have to live this way. I think that's remarkable and I think that's something to a pod.

06:42 Thank you. So tell me a little more about how you became a therapist. Hello.

06:50 One of the things that's really good about Seattle is there's a lot of support for Trans people and initially I was thinking maybe I was a cross-dresser and I joined

07:03 The Emerald City social club which was a social Organization for male-to-female crossdressers and after a while. I realized that the people there who are most resonated with were the transsexual stuff for crossdressers and about the same time. I also had discovered the Ingersoll gender Center and I started attending there and that's a dropping support group for transsexual people and I use the word transsexual because that was the word that I knew what the time is right and now kind of the word transgenders the stand in for that right? I heard you say transsexual and that kind of sounded wrong to me. I'm just so used to calling people transgender that transsexual sounds old-fashioned than just out of Step. Well, it is old fashioned River in Cox or Caitlyn Jenner.

08:03 Calling themselves transgender, right but I'll answer to either one, All right, there's no Stigma transsexual will not in my book. You know that our culture sometimes has a hard problem with sex. Yes. I do. So putting putting the sexual at the end of the trans makes people think it's all about sex and it is and is not about sex. It's about social identity. It's about who you are in the world and that reminds me of one of the most significant events in my transition was going to the King County Courthouse in Redmond, Washington about a mile from where I live and that's where I had my legal name change and as I was getting ready to leave the judge said to me congratulations on your new name, ma'am.

08:58 Wow, that's so stirring you it was it meant so much to me. I absolutely yeah, I have that recognition.

09:10 Well, that's great. So you went through all of that and you did your work it with Ingersoll. And so what happened at inkersall was it wasn't long before actually one of the people who had been

09:24 A facilitator running to so many years ago who I met at the Emerald City Social Club. So there's there's definitely crossover between those. You know, he's he's going to do a training for facilitators. And I said, can I do that in Psych sure, you know, we'd love to have you so I did that in.

09:49 I don't remember any more. I think it was 2005 and started facilitating, you know a couple of weeks later and so facilitated on and off for the four. It's been 10 years now.

10:08 What does that mean to facilitate so a drop in support group?

10:14 Basically anyone who wants to come usually people Identify some for me trans may be transgender transsexual crossdressers male-to-female or female-to-male gender queer and there's a room full of people instead of it just being free form in chaos. Someone is a train facilitator in the room and they're responsible for what happens in that room and we set the tone we read or since I've done it so often speak through the rules and guidelines for memory start a process of people going around the room and checking in after checking. We do announcements. We do a break and then

11:03 We do open discussion group and the facilitator keeps things on topic which is about anyting friends anything gender, you know, it's not about your job. And what's its about how being friends affects how you feel about your job how people like your job affect, you know feel about you and then wraps up the evening and locks up the building. All right, so you just kind of running the whole show there for them. See you down the road towards getting your master's degree. Yes. It was and what happened was that after after the end of the support group sometime so we can go out to dinner and I made friends with people and some of the friendships ended up being a symmetrical I ended up listening and coaching and talking as if Maurice a therapist and is a friend.

12:03 And I was seeing my own therapist at the time.

12:08 And I I I listen to some of my friends tell me things that I didn't entirely know. I'd I handle one of my friends was suicidal and I brought actually I had several friends who were suicidal I brought some of that into my own therapy session and after while my therapist said to me, you know what we're doing here.

12:36 We're doing informal case consultation.

12:41 So your therapist was the first one to notice this about you. Yes, and then after a while he said, you know, I think you'd make a good therapist and that's all that's all the more I needed. Yeah, I think therapists are kind of born rather than made as helping a friend of mine with a problem a few days ago and he was thanking me and I said, I'm not doing this because I'm a therapist. I'm a therapist because this is what I do think that's the way the road goes. So you've already had one successful career and one higher degree and you were on the road to retirement and you start it all over again hit how old to go back to school so

13:21 I think I went back to school when I was 63 and I needed a couple of undergraduate prerequisites. You remember those worth the same school, which and I'm then I applied for the graduate program in clinical mental health counseling and I had fallen in love with Antioch University from the first day. I stepped on their grounds and

13:53 Now I'm in my internship. I finished all my academic coursework and I go in and I see clients now in small rooms like the boots were in right now, but without microphones, right and I help people, you know, I help people find out how they can help themselves.

14:19 Right and you feel like your journey into you know, your gender transition and your journey into a new career at an age when most people are just thinking about retiring to think that helps inform how you work with your clients. Do you think that helps you be a better therapist? I bring a lot of life experience and some of my clients who being geeky people, you know, we do live in Seattle. We do live in Seattle and some have been software people and some are not software people, but they work for a big company like Microsoft or Amazon and I can relate to working for a big company. I can relate to being in a geek environment fair and

15:05 Sometimes they are wondering about what they're doing in their workplace about office politics since like that sure in a way being a little bit older than the damage in this career. Yes. It is unlike being an engineer where you start to lose value as you get older being a therapist you gain value as you get older, it's refreshing. I think it's a wonderful way to have a b.

15:35 So when I question I wanted to ask you about is his community really helped you and this building process as you got on in your life Community is so important in weather for me is a transgender person. I don't think I could have done it without the community between the the friends. I made at the Emerald City Social Club the friends. I made it Ingersoll gender Center the support of family. I have cousins who live out here. I grew up in the Midwest.

16:10 And knew my first one of my first cousin since we were kids and after a while and shortly after I moved out here 25 years ago.

16:25 One of one of his daughters moved out here and then the other daughter and then my first cousin and his wife so there now three generations of of relatives out and they've been so supportive. That's great that you found your family and general was supported.

16:45 Yes. Yeah, so my parents have passed my brother took a while to come around his son was like just instantly was there.

16:58 You know when I when I told him about Paulette over the phone, he said oh, yeah three of my friends here in college or transgender really think they're for the younger generation. It's a little bit easier to handle than some of the older generation. I think so and where I where I work now some of my clients are trance.

17:24 Can we meet that you know, my son is trans? Yes. I know he's 25 and he says that he doesn't lie feel the need for the support groups and things he just lives his life, and he doesn't want any problems.

17:34 I think that's amazing and I hope that continues for him and that's also happened with me now that I've been.

17:44 Myself as Paulette long enough that I'm not looking for the support groups to support me rather. I'm supporting some of the support groups a lot of work towards that and you certainly have that ability, especially now going forward you think you'll be working with trans people mostly or do you think you're just going to work with General mental health population will right now in my training and working with the general mental health population and it's a very broad swath and I really love that trans people come from all walks of life and trans people have problems just like everyone else and so getting a wide exposure to which people are like, I think it is I go forward because of my age. I'm not going to work full-time and because I I did well as an engineer, I don't need to work full time. So I see a speck

18:44 Jose shooting in working with LGBT people

18:50 That's not to say that if someone comes along and wants to see me.

18:56 If there's some residents which is important for therapists to have need we can work and sometimes that resonance turns out to be

19:09 The person that they are hiding in the closet still and they haven't come out to themselves to get to work with someone to help them walk that path. I love it. I can understand that.

19:25 So your work life is been buried here life has been buried you've moved around the country a lot. You were two different occupations you with a lot of different lives before I got before I stumbled into medical Electronics, which was really a good fit. I was the manager of an avionics shop in a company that did retrofit airplanes and for a while. I worked as an Electronics technician in a meteorology Department of a university and I didn't tell her work I installed.

20:05 Research a research anemometer on a antenna tower that belong to the municipality climbed up 250 ft with a colleague. Wow, hold this stuff up and bolted it to the tower you're braver than I am. You know, it's what I do.

20:30 I first met you at Antioch who became friends and my first day of my first class there.

20:37 But honored to go through this program with you and get to know you better. Thank you. It's been an honor to get to know you better. Thank you. And you know, I now have more friends of face-to-face friends and Facebook friends from my my time at Antioch University. And then I have in the trans Community isn't that interesting how identities evolve over time? You will always be trans woman. I will always be a cyst woman cisgender woman meaning. I was identify with a gender. I was born with and but the other things take a backseat of the things that we do, we're not all just about our gender.

21:20 We're about a lot of different things were about work and family and friends and Community. That's true for everyone.

21:27 I think it's nice to get to the point that you can be that it doesn't have to be a total struggle all the time just to be who you are in the world anymore.

21:40 I am so much more comfortable in my own skin. I feel happiness more often. I feel peace more often.

21:49 I'm not concerned about going out into the world living as a woman. I'm not hiding something.

22:03 That's great. You grew up in the midwest in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I was born in the hospital on Milwaukee and my parents had a small apartment and when my brother came along the small apartment was too big that was before I remember and then we moved to the near Westside Omaha and when I was in 3rd or 4th grade, we move to a suburb.

22:34 And I finished my high school there and then you know after that just flew around the country from I've lived on both coasts.

22:47 Boston back to Wisconsin out to California down to Miami Florida and then finally settled in in the suburb of Seattle. That's why I traveling what made you decide to come to Seattle.

23:07 You know, I like the weather in Miami, but it was a little warm for me. But Miami is subtropical. So it doesn't it doesn't get as hot and it doesn't get as cold as a Atlanta and I wanted I wanted to

23:25 At the time working as an engineer, Miami was not a really good place to continue my career.

23:34 And

23:36 I felt like the time Engineers are like migrant Farm Workers we go where the jobs are and I got an invitation to come out to a start of a company here in Seattle and it was a drop-dead gorgeous offer. I and its temperate out here. It doesn't get too hot. It doesn't get too cold. There's lots of opportunities in the field that I used to be in and it was also a city that some of the some of the other followers in my spiritual teacher Were Here full community building already. I had a community the day I landed

24:17 Hell, yeah.

24:19 Yeah, give me these important. I'm so glad you had that. I thought you had a place to feel at home in a place where you could truly become yourself and Blossom.

24:28 And now I've lived here longer than any other place including Milwaukee. That's really home for you now. Yes it is.

24:38 What year was it that you came here?

24:44 November 1991

24:55 The first two Winters were really tough coming right for Miami Seattle Winters are hard on newcomers video. It's gray and it's chilly and it's rainy and the people people who were born here, like myself be a kind of tired of it by February or March. I can't imagine what it's like if you're used to sunny or whether well it was tough and I understood what was going on. I went out to one of them. I think it was Home Depot and bought a 500 watt quartz halogen work light but kind of contractors you and I said it in the dining room and when I would have breakfast is sat on the floor, I turn it on and I wouldn't stare at it, but it was fairly knows about 10 feet away. It was like, you know being in the room with the sun shining and that helped reset

25:55 My clock made it a little easier to deal with it. The low-hanging clouds in the you know, the Sun that doesn't get very high and their Horizon even when it's not cloudy, right? Yeah. We have we have long nights short days up here at this latitude. I think we're the farthest north city in North America major city major city, so interesting, but you settled in here and you certainly have built a life. So that's good. I love it here.

26:30 That's great. Have you seen things get better over the years for the trans Community? Also, I know that it's gotten a lot of more press lately as you say with, you know, Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner and yeah, but but things have changed a lot. I might presume. Yes it has, you know, when when I started to explore who I might be in 2007 books in The King County Library. I remember checking out the first book this was before they had the electronic check on stations and you had to take it to the circulation desk and hand the book to the young lady behind the desk the walk from the stacks to circulation desk felt like the longest walk of my life. And when I got to the checkout desk I was so nervous.

27:26 I had this this thought crossed my mind that the librarian was going to reach under the desk and press the big red button.

27:37 But what happened after she press the big red button, I was too scared to even if they do, you know, maybe it was the trap door that was mean to open up and swallow me into the Earth, but I'm assuming probably she just checked out the book and there you went. You know, why Bruins are like that cardi B red and we're glad you came and you want to read a book now library on Center stand that I must been a momentous occasion for you. It was it was one of the big steps is coming out to yourself. Yes and coming out to myself like other other trans people and also gay and lesbian people and bisexual people coming out to yourself is the first step and it's not a step. Most people take it in at one moment. It's a process it takes time.

28:33 Yeah, it's like more of a dawning of things and come to accept this little piece of it in that little piece of it. It's an emergency.

28:47 Liam the butterfly doesn't come out instantly takes a while to come out of the Cocoon seems like you've done that quite beautifully. Thank you. I think your story is very inspirational from a lot of standpoint. Certainly if your gender transition is inspirational, but I also think just really being willing to live your life and move on and just, you know take on new challenges.

29:18 You know, I hear the words inspirational and courage and brave which are words that you've used. I've also heard those words from other people and I don't deny them. But at the same time I'm just being me that's just what I do. That's why it's so beautiful.

29:40 You're not really sitting out to change the world specifically, but you are changing the world just by being yourself.

29:47 That's a great thing.

29:50 Thank you.

29:52 Therapist talk to people that are struggling with exactly that like

29:57 Bat emergence that like finding the strength like

30:02 Yeah, how did how do you talk to people as a therapist for a blower like struggling with that whole concept of finding the strength to come out even just themselves?

30:11 We talked and you know, we start with where they're at. As you said earlier Community is so important and one of the things that I know is where to find community in Seattle and on the east side where I live.

30:32 For someone is Young. I know of three youth groups drop in support groups for 15 to 22 year olds. I know of one that you're starting. Yes. Yes. I'm starting one of my internship sight for LGBT teens. That's right. We talked about adding that to my resource list my table certainly do because the more resources you can hook people up with the better. I hope people

31:01 Work through things with their parents or their partner. I know of a couple of support groups for partners in parents one of my colleagues who graduated a few years ago from Antioch has a dropping support group for parents and partners in her practice on the east side. So part of what I do is hook people up with community.

31:28 Part of what I do is just let people talk and I listen without judgement with acceptance.

31:35 That's the most healing thing really. It's that relationship letting people know that they're not alone in the world.

31:42 Yeah, one of the funny things about therapy is that all of the different techniques work and we talked about the dodo bird effect and what we've learned really as it's the relationship between the client and the counselor that that's what it is that heals explain the dodo bird effect. O all of the therapist has been found to work about equally. Well, you know, I have to look that up in Wikipedia for right now. I'm lost it is an interesting name. I know I've heard that before too but they've all one and they all get our prize. It's the relationship that's so healing people are hurting for a real relationship and it lives.

32:36 Even those that have families and partners and spouses. It's difficult to tell me things that they've never told another person. Isn't that amazing? Yes. It is. Such a sacred trust. Yeah. Yeah. I'm always just in all of my clients will come in and tell me things that they would never tell another living human being I take that seriously that they trust me that much I do too. Wonderful you think makes us such good friends.

33:04 Well, well, there's a resonance. You know, you have a you have a trans kid and I'm trans.

33:13 We're

33:16 We're not the same age with his 15 years has separate side, but I act more like a youngster sometimes than you do it's true. We have some geek background. We have some other we've discovered that we have some other pieces where we've connected and in parts of our own shared Community. That's true. We just got word that we have friends in common from the rest of the world, which is interesting to live in a big city like this and find the circles are actually a lot smaller than one might think that's heartening to me and because we live in a small community eventually, I will run into people who come to me as a therapist who I know through a friend of a friend or I actually have met somewhere else and in small communities. We need to be careful about how we handled dual relationships.

34:15 Stations about that lately with people actually be careful not to out to clients and we talked about that even at the Ingersoll gender Center support group. We talked about it being confidential and not outing people that you've met here.

34:35 That's already created safety really be able to trust you when you're trans. The best thing is to out yourself when you're ready. Absolutely. And in the way that you choose that's right to the people that you choose doubt yourself to and possibly all of storycorps and maybe even NPR. Yeah, you were out before you came into this booth 000 very much. So yeah, I've done panels and you know appeared in public spaces your bit of a public figure. I know your kind of public figure around Antioch University. You run the lgbtqia club. Yes, I do have been on the faculty search committee. I know you got a lot of other things volunteering give your time. It's what you can do that because you have the time in like the rest of us some of them have to work our way through school. You have the luxury of time you said I do that's one of the benefits of having a career that I had.

35:37 Can you choose to give that time back to the community? I couldn't do anything else. You know, I don't think you could know either way. I do. I'm not going to go play golf for the rest of my retirement now. No, I can't I can't imagine that you would do that doesn't seem like you sitting and watching TV all day and doing crossword puzzles energy for that.

36:03 I really admire your heart and your soul on the way you do want to get back to the world.

36:08 Years ago I read a book and talked about.

36:13 Knowing when your on your right path and the only question to ask is does this path have heart?

36:21 And for me, yes, this path has hurt. This path does have heart.

36:29 Thank you for that. That's beautiful. Thank you for interviewing me. Thank you for being my friend and thank you for being my friend. I really really appreciate everything.

36:39 All right. I think it's probably a good place to end it on the path with heart.

36:44 I could wrap it up anywhere with Matt.