Interview with Jamie Wright
SL Ziegler interviews Jamie Wright.
Jamie is a trans woman and uses she/her pronouns. We talk about different parts of Louisiana and how great roller derby is.
Interviewee: Jamie Wright
Interviewer: S.L. Ziegler
Transcriber: Dre Tarleton
February 23, 2021
Location of Interviewee: Lafayette
[Transcript is slightly edited for length and clarity]
S.L. ZIEGLER: Okay, this is S.L. Ziegler sitting down remotely with Jamie Right. Jamie is a trans woman and uses she/her pronouns. Today is February 23, 2021, and we're meeting remotely using Zoom because the COVID-19 pandemic is still so, so scary. Jamie, as we discussed before, this interview is part of the Louisiana Trans Oral History Project. The goal is to gather real world examples of what it means to be trans in Louisiana, here in the early 21st century, and to share these with our trans community and also with the world. And we do so by posting transcriptions and interviews, in part or in whole, on the project's website and through our social media accounts, as well as our other various initiatives to share these stories, including podcasts and zines. And you'll also have the opportunity, if you wish, to donate your interviews to the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History at LSU for long term preservation and access. Please know that you can stop this interview at any time, and if you have any questions about this or anything else, you can reach out to me. Please also know that these interviews are a joint project between the two of us, so you'll have a chance to review the transcripts, and any portion of them can be de-identified or restricted as you deem necessary. And at this point, I'll just ask for a verbal confirmation that this is in fact what you knew you were doing today.
JAMIE WRIGHT: I confirm.
ZIEGLER: Fantastic. Thank you so much. And with that out of the way, Jamie, I wonder if we could just, that's going to be the most formal part. I wonder if we could just start at the beginning. Can you tell us where you were born?
WRIGHT: I was born in Baton Rouge.
ZIEGLER: And did you grow up there?
WRIGHT: No, I grew up in an area outside of Gonzales called Prairieville for a good bit of my childhood, then I moved outside of Houston for about four years until I was about eight or nine, and then I moved back to Gonzales, and that was pretty much where I had a lot of the rest of my upbringing.
ZIEGLER: What accounts for the moving? What did your parents do?
WRIGHT: My dad worked for a major wholesale wire and cable company, and he got transferred to the main warehouse, where he was kind of over all of that. So we moved there for a couple of years. And after a while, he was like, "I can't deal with this anymore." So we moved back home, next to my grandma and stuff. Especially after my grandpa passed away. My grandma was there by herself a lot. So that was another big reason we moved back.
ZIEGLER: Do you have a lot of family in the area?
WRIGHT: Not really. It was just me, my mom, my grandma. I have a cousin who lives kind of down the road, but we never really talked with her a lot. Other than that, I mostly had distant family on my dad's side, spread all over the southeastern region of the states.
ZIEGLER: And so, you were in Gonzales, starting around age nine. And so, that's where you did all the way through high school, I take it. Which high school did you go to?
WRIGHT: I went to Saint Amant high school.
ZIEGLER: And that's in Gonzales?
WRIGHT: Yeah, I graduated, 2008.
ZIEGLER: And high school is something that we sometimes sort of dwell on for a moment because sometimes it has such an effect on us. I don't know if you feel comfortable talking about your high school experience. I wonder if we could just get a sense of what it was like in high school in Gonzales, up until 2008. So, for instance, was there was there a significant queer presence? Do you feel like there was a queer presence at your high school?
WRIGHT: There was a very small one that was noticeable. I mean, 2004 to 2008, representation in the LGBTQ community, from where I grew up, wasn't near as prominent. It was generally a very right wing, redneck area. In conjunction with that, and like a lot of my parents' belief systems, a lot of that wasn't really representative. It was still kind of like, "Oh, so and so's gay," or whatnot. We have a couple of people that I knew in high school, that really just didn't care, and did what they wanted to do. It was received with mixed signals from a lot of other people. Yeah, high school for me, mostly I was in the band world. So, everyone kind of did their own thing in there and everyone was kind of weird in their own special way.
ZIEGLER: What did you play in band?
WRIGHT: I started on trumpet, then I played French horn, mostly, through high school.
ZIEGLER: Do you still play?
WRIGHT: Not really anymore. I went to college and majored in music education, graduated in 2012, and I taught band for several years.
ZIEGLER: So, I'm curious about the college experience. But before we get to that, did you identify as queer in high school?
WRIGHT: No. I did not. I knew that I had a lot of feelings about things, but I didn't understand anything, because I had no real idea. And because of the community I was in, it gave me a sense of internalized shame associated with a lot of those feelings. I didn't tell anybody about any of that. And I kind of tried to really suppress that.
ZIEGLER: And so, after high school, what college did you go to?
WRIGHT: I went to LSU.
ZIEGLER: I'm curious about any thoughts that you would have had. We're thinking about Louisiana and we're also thinking about the different areas of Louisiana, and how those can be compared. So, were you already familiar with Baton Rouge before you came there for college?
WRIGHT: Yeah, I knew LSU was a great university. It was honestly the only college that I applied to. And it was a big thing for me to go because I was the first person out of either of my parents to go to college, and amongst their parents as well. And my mom really pushed really hard for me to get good grades to go to college, to go to LSU and do whatever I wanted with that. But she really wanted me to go to a really good school and LSU, that was it for me.
ZIEGLER: I wonder if you could say anything about culturally, how you found the difference between Baton Rouge and where you were coming from, in Gonzales.
WRIGHT: A lot of the belief systems, in general, of Baton Rouge, I feel like are similar to where I grew up, because Gonzales, especially after Katrina, really exploded in population, as well as, as a society, because Gonzales is about a 50/50 bridge between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. So, after Katrina, we had a huge influx of people that moved to the area because the schools were good. And so that brought a lot of money into the area, which inflated it, making it a lot more expensive. So, kind of, in its own right, it became an extension of Baton Rouge.
So, outside of LSU, I felt a lot of people felt similarly, compared to where I grew up. But within the college itself, especially within the School of Music and Dramatic Arts, it was definitely a different area. You met people with all different backgrounds, from all over the country. Because LSU is a flagship school, especially with the quality of the music department that's over there. People from all over the country were going there, from New York, from Texas, a lot of people from Texas. We had international students, just because of quality of education. So you met people with all these different backgrounds, for sure.
A lot of them were queer, and it was kind of stereotyped because they were in the drama department or they were in the vocal track. So, it kind of played in a lot of that stereotype. Seeing that representation kind of made me confront a little bit more of that, and kind of started telling a few people some of those feelings that I had suppressed, that I'd mentioned, from high school and stuff. But I had no education about people that were trans. It was mostly played on stereotypes from media, as well as things that other people say.
There was a trans girl in the vocal track, for vocal music education. There was a trans girl. I remember that. And I didn't understand it. A lot of those internalized beliefs, I don't want to say forced, but encouraged me to have specific opinions about that girl, that played into my upbringing and stuff. I don't know if I've gotten off track already or not, but that was kind of a lot of my development.
ZIEGLER: No, that was great. And I appreciate you sharing that. So, did you know the trans girl that was in your program? Did you ever talk or hang out?
WRIGHT: Not really. I was in the instrumental track. And she was, I think, a year or two under me, so we didn't have a lot of the same classes at LSU. I would just kind of see her walking around or whatever, and people that were in the instrumental track kind of stuck within that group versus vocal people, and you had some intermingling, but it wasn't as common as staying with your own "people" sort of situation.
ZIEGLER: And then you said after college, you were teaching band. Was that at a high school level?
WRIGHT: Yeah, I taught sixth to 12th grade for about seven years in a very small town, very conservative part of Louisiana.
ZIEGLER: Do you mind if I ask which part was that?
WRIGHT: I lived in Jennings, Louisiana. I worked a little bit further south, in a small area that maybe the whole town had 3000 people in it. So, it was very tiny. And Jennings is a very small town area, only approximating about 10,000 residents. And it's almost equidistant between Lake Charles and Lafayette. So, there's really nothing there, where the mindset is very closed minded, very conservative, very right wing, where I really didn't see a lot of queer representation. I did have a few students who were gay, for sure.
At this point, dealing with my own personal feelings, I started to do a lot of my own research and trying to educate myself because I didn't have anybody that was going to. So, that's when I started doing a lot of my research, was in those seven years. And that was between 2014 up until last year, 2020, that I really was working and living in that area. And then as I began to educate myself, if I heard students say things that were homophobic or transphobic, I would call them out and educate them, all the while being "incognito" because I wasn't out in my community until towards the end of my tenure there.
I had some students that would tell me, "Oh, well, so and so's gay," and then I would jump their case and be like, "No, you cannot just out people like that, because it becomes a safety thing." I would really educate them on the importance of maintaining the privacy of one's own sexuality and stuff like that. And throughout the course of that, those several years of educating myself and doing a lot of soul searching, I went on the track of finally learning to accept myself and I was with a partner for a while, a woman who I had been with for eight years, since I'd graduated from LSU. And she knew from the beginning about the lot of feelings that I was struggling with and such, and was really encouraging with me along the way of helping me find who I was going to be and such, until I finally started hormones and such in 2019, and going through the process of figuring myself out, and even up until I decided to come out in my community.
ZIEGLER: That's great that you had somebody to help you. I guess what I'm wondering is, did you feel like you had any pushback from the students? So, as you were thinking about yourself, you started to think more about the way that the students treat each other. You're talking about how you were trying to educate people on not outing each other and that type of thing. Did you feel like the students were receptive to that?
WRIGHT: Generally. It was mostly my band students that had a lot of respect for a lot of care for my knowledge and wisdom. There were some other students that weren't within the band program that didn't feel as such, but they were also still playing into that. But generally, my kids in my program knew that I did not tolerate disrespect, did not tolerate transphobic, homophobic, racial insults, or anything like that. They knew that I had a very firm belief in that, regardless of how they felt. You were going to keep your mouth shut about those things.
And as a teacher, you have to remain neutral. You're not supposed to put out your beliefs and things. You're supposed to stay neutral within the bipartisan realm of our political atmosphere. But I tried to make sure that I kept my classroom a place of mutual respect, regardless of what anybody said or believed, because I wasn't going to have other students be disrespected. I would occasionally get some kids that would try to push back on the basis of science, and then I would just shoot that down, because I did my research on that too. They just knew that I wasn't going to tolerate disrespect about that.
ZIEGLER: And I wonder, you were in the Jennings area until 2020, and it was around this time, between 19 and 2020, that you're talking about coming out to your community. If you're comfortable, and again, to the extent that you feel comfortable doing so, I wonder if you'd be willing to talk about what that meant for you.
WRIGHT: Yeah, I started hormones in the end of January, 2019. And, at the time, I was identifying as a nonbinary individual because I figured, for me, being nonbinary was a nice way to bridge myself, to figure out where I was going. It was a nice, safe way for me to explore. And as time went on, and I progressed on my hormones and things, I started to realize more and more that I was a trans woman, and I was slowly coming to that realization.
And it was in the late end of 2019, that I had discovered that some of the parents had found something on the internet that was outing me to just the general public. They had found my Etsy page, where I buy things, and it had my photo of myself dressed feminine, and it had my name as Jamie under there, versus my dead name. And then there was a circle of parents that were talking amongst themselves. I found out about it, and then it kind of went away.
And then several months later, apparently some of my students had heard some of the rumors or whatnot, and I was infuriated. Because I had worked so hard to take control of my own narrative, to take control of my own story. And I felt as if that power was being taken away again. So, I went and spoke with my principal about it. I explained the situation. I came out to my principal. And she was really blown away and kind of taken aback because she didn't expect any of it. She had never heard anything.
It wasn't really becoming a problem, I just always had a big problem with people minding their own business, and people talking behind people's back, I couldn't stand that. If you find something, keep it to yourself. And because I had gone through so many loops to stay private, to stay to myself, so that it wouldn't be discovered, but everything does come to light in one point or another.
And I was having problems with performance at my work, because my work and my parents were the only people that I really hadn't come out to. So, everywhere else, I was living my life as myself, and it was really draining on me to be at work, to be somebody that I wasn't, to be an imposter, and it really just made me not care at my work and stuff. And so, I had talked with my principal and such about coming out to my students and the community and such, so that I could finally be myself, and maybe they would make a change. Because I was determined to take back my story, because I wasn't going to let anybody else take that away anymore.
ZIEGLER: Do you mind if I ask what your principal said about you coming out to your students?
WRIGHT: She was just concerned that we had to do it the right way. So, we talked for a while. She spoke with the superintendent and my assistant principal about it, to kind of come up with a game plan for the right way to go about it. Things to talk about, things to avoid. Basically, I came up with a script to come out, to discuss with them and such. And that was all cool. My principal was there to support me because my principal wants me to be happy. She wants me to be content with myself and stuff, and it was a thing that was holding me back. And so, whether or not she believed in equal rights, or whatnot, she was supporting me in that moment. And I'll forever be thankful for that.
So, ended up coming out to my students. I came out to my band students first because they're the ones that I spent the most time with. I was always with them. I honestly spent more time with them than they did their own parents, half the time. So, they were like my little family. And I got a lot of love and a lot of acceptance from them. There was a lot of backlash from the parents, by the way that I came out. And it caused a lot of turmoil within the community for about two weeks. But then everything kind of died down. I found out that I had a lot more supporters than I thought. But that also had a lot of people that just weren't about it. And then a few weeks later is when COVID happened, and that's when they stopped school.
ZIEGLER: And did it go fully remote, at that point? That would have been, I guess, March of 2020.
WRIGHT: My parish didn't require distance learning, so I didn't really do any online things for the rest of the year. And in the meantime was moving from Jennings back to Lafayette with my partner, who we were married at the time, at this point.
ZIEGLER: And so you're in Lafayette now? Is that right?
WRIGHT: I finally moved back to Lafayette, dealing with the divorce thing.
ZIEGLER: And so, if you don't mind me asking, what's your current job?
WRIGHT: I am a full time Lyft driver.
ZIEGLER: Oh, nice. Do you like it?
WRIGHT: It's very cool. I get to meet a lot of interesting, cool people. The pay isn't bad. It's just really rough on your car.
ZIEGLER: Yeah, for sure. I wonder if you have any insight, because I've definitely wondered about this, and I don't think we've had anyone on the project so far, who's been, or at least who has mentioned doing the service for Lyft or any of the other similar companies. Do you ever have any noticeable interactions with the clientele? Do you see any transphobia? Do you see any general support? Do you just see people not paying attention at all?
WRIGHT: Some of them kind of see it and bring it up, but generally, most people mind their own business. Because Lyft is really big on the safety and comfort of their drivers. So, some of the initial training is talking about if a passenger is making you feel uncomfortable by saying things that make you uncomfortable, it is within your right to stop the ride and let them out immediately. And you could report them for things like that because, all in all, that would be infringing upon the safety of any Lyft driver. So, no one says jack, whether they know or whether they don't.
I can kind of gauge. I try to talk with most of my passengers. I kind of see where they're at, my comfort level. I have my little group of regulars that I drive around, and depending on as we talk and get to know each other, some of them know. Some of them I've come out to, some of them I haven't. One girl was like, "Yeah, I figured. It's whatever." And some of them have come out to me in a mutual respect kind of situation, which has been really nice.
So, no, I generally don't have any disrespect from it. I think people also know if they're going to get disrespectful and hateful, they're going to get left on the side of the road.
I don't think you'd want to bite the hand that's doing something nice for you. Especially not [inaudible 00:28:45] and you're stuck in the middle of Johnston Street, which is the big route. You don't want to get abandoned out in the middle of Johnston Street, you know?
ZIEGLER: For sure. And had you lived in Lafayette at all before you moved there recently?
WRIGHT: Yes. I had moved to Lafayette about February or March of 2020, with my ex wife. We had moved and I had lived there about three months. And then my ex wife and I split up. I had to go live back in Jennings again, and that was hard. Because I was so ready to get out of the town that I felt like everybody was watching me. I felt generally unsafe being myself, being how I want to be.
And a lot of that paranoia came from being found out while I was still working and such. I have slowly kind of gotten out of that paranoia associated with it, but I generally have a great discomfort with living there. It's depressing. It's so taxing on my mental health. And I had to go back there and live there for another year. And that was awful.
ZIEGLER: In keeping with our theme of comparing different parts of Louisiana, I wonder if you could talk about how you find living in Lafayette.
WRIGHT: Living in Lafayette is so much more amazing. People talk about Lafayette still being kind of a small town and I'm like, "Darlin, where I lived for several years, this ain't jack." Honestly, the queer community is so much larger, especially if you know where to look. Hold on, my grandma's calling me. Let me decline this right quick. I'll call her back later. No, the queer community is much larger as with any larger area. I don't feel like I'm being judged in Lafayette. And I feel like it's a large enough city that people see so many different things that they're like, "Okay, it's nothing new." I feel so much safer there. I have found a large group of friends, associated with roller derby, where being queer is the majority. Most of them are. There's a few girls on the team that identify as straight, and that is by far the minority.
ZIEGLER: And I guess I wanted to ask you about the roller derby. Can you tell us how long you've been involved? And I guess just general thoughts about it.
WRIGHT: Oh, gosh, I started doing roller derby around August or September, 2019. And it is the place where I feel the safest being myself. It's honestly... the first practice I ever went to was the first time I went out fully presenting female without makeup on, and I felt okay doing it. Which was honestly a super big step because I felt that going out, I had to perfectly pass. I had to perfectly prepare myself to not provide any level or percentage of clockability. And for those of you that are reading this, an addendum for what clockability means is when you're clockable means that people can look at you and tell that you're not a cisgender woman, or not cisgender for how you're presenting. So, someone that is more clockable, it is easier to tell they're amab or afab, and not presenting as the gender they were assigned at their birth. And through roller derby, I've come to really learn to love myself and my own identity. And I've grown to have a large family of people who love me for me. And some of my best friends now are on the roller derby team because of it.
ZIEGLER: That's really cool. That sounds fantastic. Thank you for sharing that. I want to ask you a question now, because we ask almost everybody this, partly because of where we are. But also just generally curious. Do you consider yourself a religious person?
WRIGHT: I used to be. I used to be a heavy church goer when I was in college up until like 2012, 2013. And I really struggled with my religion and my own personal identity.
Because I didn't really start going by Jamie or finding my name and finding my pronouns until 2017, 2018. So, there was a long time that, within my own personal relationships with a deity that I really felt a lot of internalized religious shame associated with, especially from the teachings of the institution that I was attending.
So, it was a big struggle of trying to as the an old addage of saying it, "pray the queer away." And it became just so much easier to learn to love myself and accept it. Because all of the energy that I was putting into fighting it made me so tired in so many different other regards. And it was inhibiting my full potential as who I could really be. It was hindering my self esteem. It was hindering my confidence. All of those things.
And since I've moved over to Lafayette, I've accepted who I am. I've embraced it and grown into it. I have become so much stronger than I ever thought I could be. And I'm not saying I did that without religion, or I'm not saying I did that without the aid of a higher power. I'm just saying these are the choices that I've made and the acceptance that
I've grown to be content with.
ZIEGLER: When you were religious, was there a particular denomination?
WRIGHT: I identified as a Southern Baptist at a pretty much fundamentalist Baptist Church. "[sarcasm]" Very supportive. I'm just trying to clearly WRIGHT this out so the transcript understands the tone with which I am speaking.
ZIEGLER: I love it. I love it. We have a very talented transcriber, and I know that they will appreciate this.
WRIGHT: Good, I'm so glad. For my definition of clockability, if they want to put an asterisk and an addendum in the footnote, go for it. I know how this works. Let's go.
ZIEGLER: I appreciate that because it is easy to fall into trans speak, just like any community, with oral histories focused specifically on us. And that is actually something that we do go back and try to clarify. So, I do appreciate that. Jamie, this has been absolutely fantastic. Let me just, by way of closing, ask you this question, which takes this preamble. This project, again, we're gathering voices so that we get some sort of historical sense of what it means to be us here, now. And it's optimistic in the sense that there will be people around to actually read/listen to this at some point in the future. And I wonder if I can ask you this question. If you can imagine somebody reading these transcripts, or even listen to this audio in 30 years, is there anything you would like them to know about being trans in Louisiana that we haven't yet talked about? Any last message that you would like to leave with them?
WRIGHT: There is hope, and accepting who you are will make you so much stronger than you can ever imagine. That's pretty much it. I know it's easy to hear that there is hope, but to actually embrace it and learn it for yourself is so much more potent of an inspiration than just the words. Actually taking that leap and finding your strength. Because it will not be easy. But no regard of getting stronger ever is. There is always the breaking down, the weakness, and then you become strong from it.
ZIEGLER: Yeah, thank you for that. That's wonderful. And allow me to thank you again for being part of this project. I'm so excited to have your voice added to this, and I'm going to go ahead and just stop the recording.
WRIGHT: Okay.