An Interview with Lynn Jones

Lynn Jones

Lynn Jones says some transgender people do not like to talk about family and friend failures. But she says, it is often part of the transition process. And unless a trans person has no family or friends, which she doubts, they will ultimately lose somebody. She adds, this can be very heartbreaking and be a very emotional time for a transgender person.

I was recently referred to Lynn by my good friend Hanna who hails from Oklahoma. Chatting with Lynn electronically, she shared a little about her early years of transitioning.

For more than seven years, Lynn worked for the State of Oklahoma. Ultimately, she went to work for a company (which she has recently left), befriending a group of guys there. All used to gather for lunch at least twice a month. Once Lynn transitioned, she showed up at the luncheon and everybody was introduced to her ‘new self’. Most had a lot of questions, except for one. That one person is man she calls Robert. He acted strangely. He could not believe Lynn was such an evil person and that she “had thrown her soul away,” as he put it. Robert said that she had corrupted the “boys club” and that she could never show up ever again.

Lynn tried to explain to Robert that just because she had transitioned, she was still the same person with the same memories and feelings. But Robert did not care. He was blinded by his religion. His religion basically stated that if Lynn was genetically male, then she had to be male all the time for the rest of her life. And in God’s eyes she would be male forever. No matter how much science she used, Robert was deaf to what Lynn was saying.

According to Lynn, it made everybody at the table quite uncomfortable and hurt her deeply. “There were a few of the guys that left before ordering food. They picked up their phone and started talking to it like they had an emergency.” .

Lynn says she understood and did not say anything to them. There was one guy, Lynn noted, that defended her, but even he could not get through to Robert. As a result, the group never got together again. And to this day she has only been in contact with one who has recently called just to see how she was doing.

“The second person I lost in my life was a family member, a sister” Lynn tells me.

“I am the youngest of three, my brother passed away in 2013 so I will never knew what he would have thought of my translation, but I would like to think that he would have been fine with it.

“When I came out to my sister, oh my God, you would have thought that the end of the world was taking place. My sister had never been in my life. She got married when I was six years old and started a family of her own and moved away. When I told her what my new name was, she gave me a hard time because I used our mother’s middle name as my middle name. She started crying on the phone saying that she had lost her only surviving brother. When I asked her about it, she said that I was dead to her. That ended our conversation and have had none with her since then. One of her two daughters thinks I am a joke and the other puts up with me but does not keep in close contact. So, in the end, the only family I have, blood family, is myself. It is a sad story, but it happens.”

Now, on the plus side or happy side, a former associate she recently has been in contact with and is one of the people that was fully supportive of her transition, has a transgender daughter. He contacted her and asked Lynn to speak to his 39 year old transgender daughter. The good thing about this story is that he and his wife are fully supportive of their ‘new daughter’. They do not see her as a lost son.

“The way they see it is that they gained a daughter,” says Lynn. “This is an ongoing story, but I see some very positive outcomes because both parents are very supportive of their transgender child.”

And with that, I had numerous questions of Lynn.

TGForum (TGF): Your transition started about five years ago. Talk about your journey. Please do tell.

Ms. Jones: My journey started when I was a small child. I knew I was different but did not know what was happening. I was a child of the ‘60s, and there was not any terminology for my feelings at that time. Before I transitioned, I often thought there was something mentally wrong with me. I tried to take every dangerous male job I could find, construction, working on barges in Louisiana, and even deep sea underwater welding. But the feelings I had never really left me. I figured out later they were just put away. They had just been put into a box for a short period. In 1990, I was talked into doing a drag show for Halloween. I found myself very comfortable in women’s clothing, so I decided to go ahead and feed this feeling for as long as I felt it was necessary. The more I did it the more I got wrapped up in doing drag shows. Before I knew it, I did them seven days a week and made good money. Then one day, I met a genetic female, or GG, that changed my life.

In 1995, I married that woman figuring I could change myself and finally put these feelings to rest. To this day, I dearly love that woman. In 2011, she passed away from metastatic breast cancer, and I took care of her for the last three years of her life. After that, I found my life completely turned upside down and without real a direction. And, of course, the feelings I had kept in a box for so long burst, it seems, and started returning in a powerful manner.

In the latter part of 2014, I started researching what was happening between my ears and determined what I could do to fix it. The more digging I did, the more I figured there was not anything wrong with me; I was just different and always had been. In early 2015, I started researching and found a therapist. A trans-friendly therapist. I went through two or three before I found the one, I ended up with. She had a lot of experience in the trans community and understood my issues. After about eight months to a year of therapy, I concluded that I needed to transition to stay sane. Because I also figured that if I did not, I would end up a wretched and reclusive male or dead from suicide. I started group therapy at the same place my therapist worked and listened to the stories. I found out I was not the only one with the same issues. I always thought I was alone, but I discovered I was not. 

This put me on a path of talking to people and interacting with groups of other like-minded LGBTQ+ and transgender people. I started asking questions of people who had already begun their transition and then going to my therapist to find out what was right for me. She had given me the name of a hormone doctor that happened to be a trans woman. The doctor prescribed my initial estrogen and male hormone blocker when I went to her. She also answered a lot of my questions about transitioning. I figured that this was the right person that could tell me exactly what I wanted to know. She had been through it already and could tell me about some of her pitfalls and successes. It is hard for me to sit and talk about all my different experiences over the seven years I have transitioned. I would not go through some of them again, but I would not trade for anything. All I have tried to be is a help to other trans people and serve as an advocate for the LGBTQ+ and transgender communities. I spoke at round tables at Oklahoma colleges and taught second and third-year doctors how to ask for medical history. In 2019, I was honored to be asked to give a speech at the Oklahoma Transgender Day of Remembrance or TDOR. In 2020, I was asked to send in a TEDx audition tape. They received it and rejected it and, after reviewing it, said that I did not have that good of a stage presence. They asked me to work on it and that they would like to come back to me in a few years. Speaking to people and groups is probably the most rewarding part for me. Of course, I get the people that do not understand and will lash out, the haters. I tried to explain to them that I was not trying to be special and wanted to be treated like any other female and live a life like myself, as any other human being would expect. But some say my very existence is an abomination or a threat to their existence. Those people I cannot help, and no amount of explanation will change their mind or their views. I have to walk away from those people.

TGF: What was your deciding factor to transition?

Ms. Jones: My deciding factor to transition was when in therapy, it finally occurred to me that this feeling that I had for so many years and I had kept in a nice neat little box was not going away, and I was unable to keep a tight lid on it. I had to do something, or it would haunt me for the rest of my life. When things in the media started changing, and more people were coming out as LGB or transgender, I figured that the times were beginning to change and that I could also make the change.

TGF: Back to your work life, it took a few years for you to come out at your job. Obviously, you moved at your own pace. Were there any positive vibes?

Ms. Jones: My transition at my previous company, which I had been at for almost 10 years, was forced by Social Security. When I went and had my name and gender changed at Social Security by law, my job had to know about the change, which meant that I had to come out at work. I would not precisely be ready, but I figured that now was the time if it had to be done. Initially, human resources were good with it, but they had no policies. That meant I was the first one to transition at work. Since the company was also in California, they had transgender people working there. Still, most of them had already transitioned before working for the company. I was the first one to transition while at the company. It was not as smooth as I would like it to of been, but I was prepared to fight if I had to. And unfortunately I did have to. On the face of it, the company was trans-friendly. But covertly, they were not. They still had no policies or diversity training when I left the company. If the company had put procedures in place and had diversity training, I truly believe that many of the issues I went through would not have happened. I had to take managers and people to HR over misgendering and using my wrong name. Unfortunately, this put a bullseye on my back as far as some managers were concerned. I did have quite a few managers that were allies, but when it came to an end, they all stayed quiet as I was asked to leave the company.

TGF: The road you have traveled has included numerous surgeries. Has it been a smooth ride?

Ms. Jones: I thought long and hard before I made any permanent changes when it came to surgeries. For me, it is surgery that I have had that has been one that made me feel more feminine. Most of my surgeries have been without complications but believe it or not, the only drawback I have found was getting breast augmentations. I know that sounds funny, but I seem to be bumping into things when I turn sideways. I am still not used to items falling between my cleavage. I enjoy using my bra as a storage location for my cell phone or cigarette lighter. Other than that, I have absolutely no issues with the surgeries that I have had. One piece of advice that I give to all my transgender friends asking me about my surgeries is to think long and hard before you take that step. Make sure that this is what you want. It will change your life and your self-perspective.

TGF: As you stand in front of the mirror today, what do you like most about your appearance?

Ms. Jones: I can honestly say that there is not one thing that I do not like. I realize and have made peace with what I am as I get older. I have been referred to as somebody’s mother, which is a backhanded compliment. Even today, it makes me smile. Every once in a while, I look at some old pictures of me before I transitioned, before the laser hair removal, the short hair, and before the estrogen moved the fat in my face. About a year ago, I stood in front of the mirror and realized that I had finally gotten to where I look like the woman. It is where I thought I should always be. It is taking time, and many emotions have gone under the bridge, but I feel I am where I should have been all along.

TGF: You started a closed Facebook group, Transgender Women Only. Do you have many followers?

Ms. Jones: Unfortunately, no. I have more followers in real life than on social media. Being old-school, I do not fully understand social media’s power and tend not to put everything online. I have many friends in many different places who know how to get a hold of me via email or text, and I am more than willing to stop what I am doing to help them out.

TGF: Have you been able to make friends in your geographical area? And what do you value most in your friends?

Ms. Jones: Most of all, my friends are around my area here in Oklahoma. I have a lot of allies from work and other groups I have participated in over the years. Those are people that make the difference. I guess the most thing that I value in a friendship is communication and honesty.

TGF: As a published writer what topics do you write about?

Ms. Jones: All my published books are fiction. Right now, I have two published short stories in books of short stories, and the third is coming out soon.

I have two books that I am working on. The first is called The Hidden Sorceress.  This book is about a young woman, Lorelai, that feels that her life is unremarkable and what she calls boring. One day a box arrives from her great-grandmother, only to find out that she and her gay male friend are about to embark on a magical and profoundly mystical journey that started in her family tree hundreds of years before. In a faraway country Cymru, that we now call Wales.

My second book, which I am closer to finishing, but I do not have a real title for but is tentatively called The Dancing Dead. This is a story about a young woman involved in a car wreck who goes back to her boss, Christine, for her job after spending months in the hospital. Helene Harper needs someone to masquerade as her at a family reunion and will pay Christine for her service. Christine suddenly finds that her service term for this masquerade is a year-long term at an old, dilapidated house atop a hill with a family of geriatric people with visions of the time before the public widely used electricity. The dilapidated mansion harbors a dark, ghostly family secret buried for almost a century. Unknown to the family members, Christine will be the unwilling participant in Helene Harper’s masquerade.

TGF: Finally, through that you have experienced, what makes you laugh?

Ms. Jones: A good joke. My three cats like to rumble and tumble on the floor or play chase throughout the house. Two like to tunnel underneath blankets while the third pounces on the bumps as they move around the bed.

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Tags: featured, interview, Transgender, Transition

Category: Interview