Oral History with Tori Elmore, October 24, 2014 (Ms2015-007)

Ellen Boggs: Alright. My name is Ellen Boggs, I'm here with Tori Elmore and

David Atkins. This is part of the oral history project for Dr. Cline's class for

the LGBTQ. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Tori Elmore: As Ellen said, I am Tori Elmore. I am twenty-eight years old,

originally from Wytheville Virginia just down the road. [I] Graduated from

Virginia Tech in Mechanical Engineering in 2009 and I've been working up the

road in Giles County ever since.

BOGGS: We've already covered your name, date of birth. Oh did you cover your

date of birth?

ELMORE: I was born on August 14th 1986.

BOGGS: Alright. If you could tell us more about where you're from and the people

you interacted with there [Wytheville] and throughout your childhood?

ELMORE: I was born in Charlotte and lived there until I was almost nine. Pretty

normal 00:01:00upbringing, [I] went through various phases of Ninja Turtles and Power

Rangers and just ran around outside, built Legos, which was probably a sign I

was going to be an engineer one day. Nothing uncommon, I never really thought

about anything like 'who am I supposed to be?' It just never crossed my mind. I

never really thought about it. I was just too busy doing stuff, learning stuff.

Though my mom did tell me when I was coming out of diapers and she as taking me

to get my big boy underpants, cause that's apparently a big day, she asked me

what I wanted and I said 'pink'. She thought I just didn't know what I was

talking about and we never broached the subject ever again, well until a few

years ago, but we will get to that. Yeah a 00:02:00pretty normal childhood. Then moved

here to Wytheville, which is quite a change of scenery from being just outside

Charlotte. Really I remember, let's see [pause]. I remember having a hard time

with my older brother because I've always been more introverted and he would

make fun of me a lot and his friends would also and they would call me names, it

was less than pleasant. I tried to avoid him at all costs, but it doesn't really

work out. You can't avoid someone in the same house. But I had my own friends. I

was in the [school] band and ran cross country and track and stuff. I think some

of my best friends were in the band. Cross country was just my 00:03:00outlet to do

physical things or I'd get cranky and feel like I didn't know what I was doing

with my life. I dated some; I was mostly just scared to talk to girls. Really

awkward in general, in case you can't tell. That part of things was pretty clear

to me as far as who I was attracted to that hasn't really been much of a

question. Some of the other things in my life didn't come up until maybe my

early twenties. I probably started letting myself ask those questions. There was

a lot of repression, I think, in my teenage years. I'm sorry if I'm jumping

around or anything.

BOGGS: No that's fine. 00:04:00Could you say why you moved to Wytheville was it for your family?

ELMORE: Yeah it was for my dad, he got a job there. So he went from [pause] he

was a shift supervisor at Eastman Chemical Company and he got a Plant Manager

position at, they've changed so many names now, it was Morton Powder Coatings

then it got bought by Roman Hoss and then Dow for a while now it's Axon of Bell

[sp]. It was a chance for him to better himself and a better life for us, so we

jumped on it.

BOGGS: In high school were you more into the math and science as an engineer

coming into Tech?

ELMORE: Oh yeah, I was definitely a mathlete. I was on the math competition

team, which was really fun for me. I filled in for the science team a couple

times and everyone just kind of expected me to sit there and I got a few

questions 00:05:00right. I was just like, okay.

BOGGS: As far as your band friends how close would say you were with them?

ELMORE: I never really talked much with them about seriously deep stuff with

really much anybody, but I would say they were my best friends.

BOGGS: For homecoming dances or anything, did you go to those, prom?

ELMORE: Yeah they were a good time. I went just mostly to have fun; asking a

girl to go with me was just kind of a chore, like well I guess I have to.

BOGGS: How did that go?

ELMORE: Some occasions better than others, but overall I just had a good time

with it. I usually tried to ask friends, cause I wasn't really romantically

interested with anyone at my own school for some reason. All 00:06:00my dating

experiences were with people at other schools nearby.

BOGGS: So how would you meet them?

ELMORE: Friends of friends, traveling to different competitions or sporting

events stuff like that.

BOGGS: Pretty basic, everyone does that. What was the application process like

to get into Tech anything really stuck out?

ELMORE: There was no essay so I was like 'I'll apply there cause I don't have to

write an essay and I really don't want to do that.' It was just right up the

road, so I applied for early decision and got accepted and was like 'alright

well that's done, moving on.' So I didn't really have to worry about it from

that point on.

BOGGS: Well now if you just want to talk about how college was different than

high 00:07:00 school?

ELMORE: In high school I was really religious. I've developed some theories

about why, but it was what it was, and coming to college forced me to open my

mind a little bit more about the world as it is, and the first couple years I

kind of stayed in my little bubble. But then I just got tired of it. I felt

repressed in the sense of not really having control over my own life and letting

other people do it for me, and that's definitely just friends and not my parents,

they're amazing. I started kind of branching out and 00:08:00doing various illegal

activities [laughs] and it started freeing my mind up to think about things

outside of a certain context. When I did that, I think that's when some really

high level anxiety started. I started to get a sense of something was just not

right. I just feel different for some reason, just off, not like a [air quotes]

'normal' person. I felt uncomfortable in general and just really awkward and I

felt like I needed to do things, like drink a lot, to be able to socialize 00:09:00 well.

As time went on in my later years of college I started to get more of a sense

of what was going on; that things weren't right and I really did feel like

someone else, but I didn't treat it that way at first. At first I treated it as

this super secret thing I did in private and then didn't tell anyone about, as

far as expressing my inner [short pause] desires, if that's the right word?

BOGGS: Is there any specific moment that you can think of where you kind of

transitioned from thinking of yourself one way to the next?

ELMORE: Not really one specific moment, it-

BOGGS: Just a collective?

Tori: Yeah, an evolution of thought. 00:10:00It very much evolved from I'm comfortably

male to I'm just really awkward and uncomfortable for some reason to oh, I

apparently really enjoy pretending to be a woman. I thought oh that's weird,

but okay it's fun so I'll roll with it, but keeping that private, and then going

to places like the park or go with a friend that just happened into my life at

just the right moment to somewhere like Asheville for a night. Then that turned

into, I like who I'm seeing in the mirror this way more than otherwise. Then

[laughs] that turned into me talking with my mom saying, 'hey I was thinking

about getting a therapist.' [She asked] 'Why?' [I replied] 'Oh there's this

thing I 00:11:00like to do sometimes', and then she's like 'oh okay, well that's fine.'

She wasn't really sure what to make of it because it came out of nowhere. But

then I was like I don't want to do any [laughs] hormones or surgeries or

anything, I swear! That turned into, maybe a year or two later, me saying to

her that 'so I think I kind of need to do this hormone thing [laughs].'

BOGGS: Was that from a doctor telling you to do that, or just something you

thought about yourself?

ELMORE: Both. My anxiety got worse and my depression got worse, a lot worse. I

was just doing a lot of really destructive things and not really caring. I

wasn't, what was the word?, my aunt, she's a social worker in Baltimore, she

described it as being passively suicidal; where 00:12:00you're not going to go actively

cut yourself or jump off a bridge or anything, but if a situation could come up

that would cause you harm, whatever who cares, whatever. I was very apathetic

about it; and that's where I was getting. I would do things like go get hammered

at the bar and be like fuck it, I can still drive home, and I don't care, it's

fine. And then I wrecked the truck, and had some really close calls with DUIs,

and had to get friends to come get me at four in the morning. It was just a

downward spiral and eventually just reached a point where I was sitting in my

kitchen, just chugged a bunch of vodka or something, this was fall of 2012, and

I was looking at my little island of steak knives and just kind of picked one up

and just thought, you know, 00:13:00this would just make so many things so much easier.

Just the fact that I thought that just made me step back and go, 'what the fuck

am I doing with my life, I have got to do something. I can't keep doing this.'

I called up my best friend and we talked about it and she was like you've got to

do something different. And I was like, maybe I need to try this hormone thing,

maybe that's why I'm so upset. I started to think about how if I didn't like it

I could just stop. It's no harm, no foul, it's kind of a no-lose situation.

Even just the act of me saying, 'yes I'm going to give this a try' just

completely shifted 00:14:00how I was feeling about life. I just instantly became

happier and more excited and hopeful. I would tell people when they asked how

I'm doing I would say I'm [stuttering the word] ha-hap-happy, like [laughs] it

was some foreign concept I could never understand. Or, am I describing this

about myself? That's not right. It fits, but it doesn't seem like it's

supposed to fit.' If that makes sense.

BOGGS: It does, it does make sense. So, with the friend that you called, she

had an idea of how you were feeling at the time?

ELMORE: Yeah, we talked about everything. She had a master's in Women and

Gender Studies, so she was a good best friend to have, still is.

BOGGS: Was there anyone else you had talked about it with?

ELMORE: The roller derby team was great with it.

BOGGS: Oh, please talk about that.

ELMORE: [Laughs] Yes! Whenever we would have formal 00:15:00occasions, which we would

have randomly, I could dress how I wanted, everybody was totally fun with it and

we had a blast, and they were just completely open. 'Just do you,' they kept

saying. I originally joined the team in 2009; me and my roommate went to

recruitment night and I figured, well I'm graduated, I guess I need a hobby or

something because I have extra time now, this seems like fun. I couldn't play

because it's a women's sport, but I could referee. I thought, alright, let's

see what happens; who knows, there might be some fringe benefits and we'll see

how it goes. Just to try something. I guess maybe I just had a hunch it was

the right place for me to be because it's a very eclectic kind of culture. I

just got addicted to 00:16:00it, hooked on it, just loved it. Over time, over the next

few years, I would open up more and more about myself. Some of the girls on the

team kept saying, 'you know if you just went ahead and started taking hormones

you could be playing with us.' [I replied], 'oh I don't know, that's scary, I

don't know.' Then I eventually did and I'm playing now!

BOGGS: So where is the derby team at, where do you guys practice and play?

ELMORE: Yeah, we're based out of Christiansburg up until recently when

Adventure World, the rink in Christiansburg, went out of business. So we're in

Roanoke right now until we either have a new rink open up in Christiansburg, or

can find a big warehouse space to rent, just some big flat enclosed area.

BOGGS: Do you guys travel at all, where do you get to go?

ELMORE: This year I've been to Fredericksburg, Lancaster 00:17:00 Pennsylvania,

Charleston West Virginia. I'm going to Johnston City later today. In the past

we've gone to Virginia Beach and Wilmington, Charlotte, Winston Salem, just kind

of all over the place- Harrisonburg, Charlottesville, Richmond.

BOGGS: How does that happen? Do you guys set it up yourselves or-

ELMORE: Mhmm.

BOGGS: How do you network for that?

ELMORE: Internet helps. I don't know how it could be done without the internet;

I just can't imagine it. Every team puts there information out there and every

team has an interleague coordinator who sets up the schedule and works with

other teams to figure out their open dates and our open dates. It's like okay

well we can play you on this date and then other teams will play you on this

date. We look at the history of where did we play last time, was it 00:18:00home last

year or away last year and try to reach the best solutions for everyone.

BOGGS: Do you make friends just on your team?

ELMORE: No I've got friends everywhere. Tomorrow we have a 'bout,' we call them,

against the team from Beckley. I'm really good friends with, probably close to,

half their team. I've just known them for the last few years. I've got some good

friends on the Charlottesville team, other West Virginia teams like Charleston,

Lewisburg, some on Johnston City's team, just kind of everywhere. I traveled as a

referee, not just for our team, I would get Facebook messages 'hey there is a

bout next weekend in, pick-a-place, and we need an extra ref.' I would be like

'yeah sure I'll do it.' 00:19:00Over the years just networked and just met some really

great people.

BOGGS: What do you guys do outside of Derby?

ELMORE: I don't know, just hangout, grab dinner, drinks. We've got random PR

events we'll do, or fundraising events. That's pretty much it, but that's pretty

much all I do with anybody [laughter].

BOGGS: Can you think of any challenges you faced either here at Tech or after

you graduated with derby or in the workplace. Anything you would want to talk about?

ELMORE: The only time there were really challenges was when the plant would shut

down from lack of electricity, which is important, electricity is important. And

so then I'd have to go on night shift for a month and start the place back up

and 00:20:00that would impact my ability to go to practice and I would have to ask my

boss if I could have a day off to go ref a bout, or this year to go play in one,

and then go back to work the next night. Those have really been the only times

it's been an impact . They've been really great to work with because other

people do things like, they've got kids who play football or softball. One of the

guys on my hall at work he's one of the coaches at Christiansburg High's

football team. So he just comes in earlier so he can leave earlier and go be at

practice. We just make our little arrangements like that.

BOGGS: Where do you work again? Sorry.

ELMORE: It's Celanese. It's a chemical plant about thirty minutes away in Giles

County, between Pearisburg and Narrows. Or 'Narras' [pronounces with an accent]

as the locals call it.

BOGGS: What do you do?

ELMORE: I'm 00:21:00a Maintenance Engineer. So things break and I figure out why, and if

things break frequently I try to dig more into it and see what's really causing

it. Are there process issues? Is it metallurgy concerns? Are there adjustments

that are supposed to be made that are not getting made? A lot of

troubleshooting, investigating, also trying to engage our mechanics in safety

culture which is not the most fun part of my job. I would rather get greasy and

dirty and solve problems, so I guess that's why I became an engineer.

BOGGS: You mentioned you would play with Legos in your childhood, so you kind of knew

ELMORE: Oh yeah.

BOGGS: But how did that evolve with your personal identity, or if it had any

intersection at all?

ELMORE: Having that sense of I 00:22:00like to fix things and solve problems and put

things in their right place, I think, helped because it gave me an outlet to

figure out what was going on in my head like in a rational sort of sense. One of

the sessions with my therapist when I was debating whether to start hormone

treatments I made a pro and con list: here's all the reasons why it would be good

and here's all the reasons why it would be bad. Then we would talk about it and

some of them would be more facetious than others. Then eventually the right one

won out.

BOGGS: Was there a deciding factor?

ELMORE: Just kind of feeling, intuition.

BOGGS: Was it on your list?

ELMORE: No it wasn't [laughs]. I wanted to 00:23:00be as rational about it as I could.

But once we talked through, especially talked through the cons, and realized

that those downsides that I had really weren't that big a deal things that I

really cared about, I just was like 'yeah, I think this is what I need to do.'

Something went off in my brain like Finally! You've finally gotten the message!

We've been onto you for this for years even tried to drop you some hints when

you were twelve and you wouldn't listen.' Like when puberty started, I hated it!

Oh god, the hair on my face and everywhere else and I was like eww this is ugh .

Get this away from me, get this off me. But the brain is really adaptable so I

just kind of dealt with it and things sort of worked themselves out. Sort of, I

guess [laughs].

BOGGS: I'd say 00:24:00so. When you were at Tech here were you involved with the Hokie

Pride? I'm not sure if it was called

ELMORE: Not at all.

BOGGS: Did you know anyone who was?

ELMORE: Yeah. I had some gay friends and it was just one of those things like,

'oh that's cool. You gotta do whatcha gotta do.' It wasn't a community I had any

interest in doing anything with, just no vested interest in it. Yeah I just

didn't really have any vested interest in it at the time.

BOGGS: Are you involved in it now?

ELMORE: Yeah much more now. Not so much at Virginia Tech, I'm still trying to

figure out am I too old to be doing anything with the university because I'm just

an alum and I'm 28. 00:25:00But when this transition started becoming more and more real

my mom reached out to New River Valley PFLAG and so I started going with her and

met some really great people there. That's kind of gotten me branching out and

helping with the rest of the LGBTQ community, so this isn't the first interview

that I've done before. I really think the best outreach that I do is just

showing up to work everyday in blue collar boys club USA.

BOGGS: Yeah how's that?

ELMORE: I thought they would chase me out of town with torches and pitchforks.

Somewhere in the back of my head I thought 'yeah that's gonna happen,' but no

everybody's been great. I had a hunch that people are generally better than we

give them credit for, 00:26:00especially in terms of Appalachian culture. We want to do

right by people even if something seems kind of weird or strange. If they care

about you then they'll just may not necessarily agree with what your doing,

which a lot of people at work are that way. They still won't treat me any

differently and they'll have fun with me. One day, the first day I came in with

these really tall boots, someone made a joke like 'dang you bringing in your

Durango boots today,' I said 'well they show off my legs.' When I came out

someone was like 'Ok so you're going to be a girl now. Can we still fuck around

with you?' [ELMORE replies] 'Oh, it would be weird if you didn't.' [worker

replies] 'Okay, cool, just wanted to be sure.'

BOGGS: So this was happening while you were at work?

ELMORE: Yeah so I've worked there since 2009 and 00:27:00as time went on, I guess

starting in maybe 2011, the time frame's a little fuzzy, there was rampant

alcohol abuse that makes the time frame a little fuzzy, which I actually really

hate. I actually started having a Dexter style double life where I would go out

dressed certain ways with certain company and have to keep pictures untagged on

Facebook like 'don't tag me on Facebook! I swear don't do it,' because I would

be friends with people at work and they would see it and bad things would

happen. Whenever I would go out I would have to shave all my body hair. I

couldn't do it in the summer because then I'd be wearing t-shirts and 00:28:00 people

would be going 'why are your arms so bare?' So I had to play it seasonally, like

'oh winter is coming I actually get to do this stuff now,' which ironically

broke my heart when it started to get warmer because then I had to kind of let

that hibernate for a while. Then I just couldn't do that anymore, it was

exhausting. It was not who I was and so I started figuring out how I was gonna

come out in a place that has a fifteen on the Human Rights Council score. I'd

heard 00:29:00snippets of conversations from people about 'so and so's gay it ain't no

big deal,' just in passing not about me. Just conversations in general, you hear

certain things people say and you store it in your mind for later processing or

like that's an interesting data point. Things started to come together. They

[Celanese] had a new CEO that was really trying to have a big diversity push. We

had gotten a new Plant Manager who was from Sweden and I thought 'oh she's gonna

bring some European sensibilities here.' And just my gut instinct from what I

knew of the people that, 'I think this is going to be okay. I think the timing

is right.' So 00:30:00once I had given myself enough hormone time- whenever I had to

tell my boss 'hey I'm gonna need to have Friday off, I need to go to UVA.' [boss

replies] 'What do you have to go to UVA for? Is everything okay?' 'Yeah, yeah everything is fine I have to see an endocrinologist.'

'What the-an endo what?' 'They deal with glands and stuff.'

'Oh alright, everything's alright though?' 'Yeah I just have to

get some stuff looked at.' 'Oh okay. Cool.' So they were great about

that, but I wouldn't tell them why until, so I started hormoning in April and my

plan was around the end of the year I should be transitioned enough that the

face would look less masculine and things would develop and I would just be, 00:31:00what's the word for when babies develop in the womb?

BOGGS: Oh gosh, I have no idea.

ELMORE: [Laughs] Alright well I had cooked long enough, let's go with that. So I

sat down with my boss, my former boss, they work closely and in similar roles

and I just set up a meeting with a nebulous title like 'discussing the future.'

They were like 'so you called us in here. What is this for?' I had this cup of

coffee and was shaking like it was gonna spill everywhere and they said 'c'mon

you're shaking like a leaf. What's going on?' So I told them what I had been up

to over the past year and what my desires were going forward. I said 'for the

last nine months I have been taking estrogen and testosterone blockers and it's

the 00:32:00best thing I've ever did and I've never been so happy.' They said 'oh,

really?' 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I'm gonna be like a woman now.'

They were like 'that is so cool! I've never known anyone that's done that, how

did you know?' So I told them the whole story and they said 'that's really

fascinating, wow.' So we talked about what we would say to HR and how to move

forward and when we talked to HR they didn't really know what to do. No one had

apparently done this before in the entire seventy year history of Celanese, this

was a first, which blew my mind. So I gave our HR department some reference

material some different organizations to talk to, gave them PFLAG information,

gave them 00:33:00some Allen Equal [sp] I think it was their website and contact

information. So they talked with some corporate HR people and it turned out

there was already the beginnings of an LGBTQ diversity initiative. So we just

kind of jumped in with that, so we worked out a plan; we were gonna wait until

the New Year when people are back from holidays and just kind of make an

announcement to the management. Then we would do little small group sessions

with all the mechanics that I work with, then maintenance. There's about one

hundred or so mechanics I work with on a routine basis, so we figured small

group sessions. That way if anyone had any questions or concerns 00:34:00or religious

fervor, there was some of that, not as much as I thought there would be, but

there was some. Meeting with the management people I was horrified, terrified,

just completely frightened, but our HR manager said what was going on and people

were just so happy for me. Our operations manager said 'I've never been so proud

of you before. It takes a lot of guts to do what you're doing especially in a

place like this.' People kept saying how brave I was, how courageous I was. But

it didn't feel like that for me; for me I was just doing what I gotta do, not

trying to make a statement or anything. I'm just trying to live, it's this or

the alternative and the alternative is much colder and more 00:35:00eternal and I didn't

want to do that. So I started having the small group sessions with our

maintenance personnel, who are all most of them have side enterprises as farmers

or mechanics auto mechanics, so it is very blue collar, very well-to-do kind of

people. I've built up a good relationship with them over the years and joke

around with them about stuff. I already had a reputation as being kind of

strange for roller derby, so most of the questions I got when we, me and my boss

and their foremen, had these meetings, most of the questions were around 'what's

your name gonna be?' 00:36:00'What bathroom are you going to use?' Regarding that, there

are unisex bathrooms scattered around, so we figured well that's probably the

easiest thing for now and we'll figure out when to start using the female ones

sometime later when we're all used to this, which that time is now and we're

working on that. I let people know early on that they could ask me anything,

anything, nothing's off the table here. So they ask me everything that you would

expect, maybe not expect people to ask, but what you would secretly want to ask

but don't want to be rude about it. So some people were more tactful about the

questions than others. One person was just very blunt about the 00:37:00question, he

said 'so can I ask you something?' I said 'yeah oh god what is it Aaron?' 'so you gonna get your dick cut off?' [Laughs] I said 'that's why I like

you.' I was just like 'I don't know. It's taken me this long to figure out what

the hell I'm doing in life, I'll deal with that later.'

BOGGS: Do you think that since you were so open about it, that's why people were

so accepting?

ELMORE: I think so.

BOGGS: If you had been more repressed it might have been

ELMORE: I think it would have been more uncomfortable, but I came into it with a

sense of humor and I let everyone know I didn't want to have the vibe of 'if you

say anything about this you're gonna be in trouble.' I wanted to have the sense

of 'yeah, it's really weird. It's totally uncomfortable for everybody. It's new,

lets just figure it out together and have some fun with it.' 00:38:00But there was some

backlash, a few people, one guy was like 'Well I don't believe in any of this

stuff, you mean I gotta work with him?' I just thought 'whoa dude.' So then my

boss jumped in and just snarled at him and said 'Yes that's exactly what you're

going to do.' I thought 'yay. Go Chuck, yay.' And then one guy said something

about, this is all because of Obama's America [laughter] and we have all turned

from the Lord Jesus Christ. I thought 'I'm telling you I'm becoming a chick. How

does Obama come into this?' Things that just make you go buh? [exasperated

noise]! So yeah that really happened. There were other people though that 00:39:00 as

these meetings were spaced out over a week that rumors and stories spread

around. So we got this little meting coming up and this is what it is going to

be about. So some people would give me warnings like, 'now I believe in the Holy

Bible and I believe in the Lord Jesus and everything the book says, so I just

want to know if you're sure that this is what you want to do. It may have

eternal consequences.' I kept a poker face, but I would just roll my eyes and my

head like oh dear God. But I thought about it, and I think if they didn't care

about me at 00:40:00all they wouldn't have even bothered, but because they did believe

that that was a thing, a risk, a worry and that they expressed it, that they

actually cared about me as a person, because they didn't say it from a place of

damnation or you're going to hell for this. It was more from a place of concern,

like genuine concern. So I tried to understand people's meaning and context more

than the actual words that they were saying. One guy gave me a whole big list of

pages of Bible verses to read and study over. So it is coming from a 00:41:00place of

concern not judgment.

BOGGS: Did you read the list?

ELMORE: I did. Some of them contradicted each other, surprise! But, it was what

they believed and that's fine. Our working relationships haven't really changed

much. People have told me, since I started coming to work how I want to,

that, they would just look at me and say 'you just look so much happier. You're

just so much brighter and cheerier and just seem so happy.' I told them 'I am.'

So I think that people are understanding that it's not just a choice people make

it's something that you just gotta do. That they see how I 00:42:00was before and how I

am now and they think about how much happier I am as a person and how much that

makes it easier to work with someone when they're happy and people want other

people to be happy. Its just been a really, mostly great experience.

BOGGS: You mentioned that you had to go to UVA to see an endocrinologist?

ELMORE: Yeah.

BOGGS: Why did you have to go so far?

ELMORE: Uh, I tried a couple of endocrinologists around here. One guy in

Princeton thought, when I said on the phone I was looking for hormone

replacement, that I was low on testosterone and needed to boost it and I was

like 'Oh no, no, no, no, no I want to go the other way with it.' He said 'Oh I

don't have any training for that.' I wanted to be like I've read what the

training 00:43:00is, it's really not that hard. Prescribe a couple things and watch

levels, but whatever you're a doctor I'm not. And then I tried this other guy

and he seemed on the edge of senility and I didn't get a sense of comfort that

he knew what he was doing. He told me, the guy from Princeton told me, my

therapist had told me you'll probably have to go to UVA for this. So I ended up

having to go to UVA for this, but gotta do it. So they were really top notch,

still are and it's a good two and a half hours away just to go see a doctor,

which in a sense seems ridiculous. I have a friend that went female to male and

he is having to go to Lynchburg for his shots. I just think why can't, 00:44:00why don't

doctors know this stuff. I mean I know malpractice and liability's a concern but

come on, you know, a couple hours of training and I'm sure that would be

sufficient. Why is that not more prevalent?

BOGGS: Where did you, you said that you read the training, where did you get that?

ELMORE: [I] read some documents from the Endocrine Society and WPATH, I can't

remember what it stands for its World something Association for Transgender

Health. There's guidelines about what the patient should exhibit and what in

terms of gender dysphoria and how to start treatment. I think there were even

specifics on doses, recommended starting doses and blood testing frequency and

then you just kind of make adjustments from there until things 00:45:00get in a certain

range. So it seemed like it made sense to me but I'm a mechanical engineer not a

doctor of humans.

BOGGS: When you first started it did you notice anything changing immediately,

or did it take time?

ELMORE: It took some time, but I just instantly felt better. Like 'ahhhh [sigh of

relaxation], like I was finally doing the right thing.

BOGGS: So it wasn't really the treatment; it was just that you knew you were

headed in the right direction?

ELMORE: Yeah, it was very much a psychological impact, but then I'd say three

months or so in my chest started hurting and that's when I was kind of like yea!

Things are happening! So, [aside] Sorry my contact is misbehaving.

BOGGS: I understand that

ELMORE: I might need to take a minute. 00:46:00[pause] Ok I think I got it [laughter].

So, I think the level of emotions I've had has been the most different, multiple

emotions at the same time. Where I don't know how I'm feeling, am I sad, am I

angry, am I frustrated? It's all of them. Surprise, this happens.

BOGGS: You think that's more from the hormones?

ELMORE: I think so. I've cried more in the last sixteen months than I have in

the last sixteen years. Over silly things like, let's see I missed the deadline

to take the PE Exam.

BOGGS: What's that?

ELMORE: Professional Engineering Exam. So then I cried. In hindsight I'm like

that's a stupid reason to cry, but it just happens. Every now and then I get

home from 00:47:00work and I'm having a bad day and I'm like I'm just gonna curl up on

the couch and watch something sad and cry, just gotta have a cry.

BOGGS: I understand that.

ELMORE:But I like it more. I actually get a sense that I can express my emotions

instead of before when I would feel angry or frustrated it would just brew and

there was no outlet for it. Now it's like I feel the negative emotion, I get it

out and I move on with life. It's such a bea- I almost just said better and

easier, beasier [laughs] way of way of dealing with it, in my experience.

BOGGS: You mentioned your mother took you to PFLAG, so was that something she

just did on her own? You had no idea?

ELMORE: Yeah, she just reached out on her own. 00:48:00I think she wasn't surprised that

something was going to be happening. After some research and study, reflecting

on her own family experience, her sister is very, I don't even know the right

word, I think she had some Bi [sexual] tendencies. Very gender queer kind of

fluidity. So, then we did some research we found out when my grandmother was

trying to get pregnant with my mother she took a pregnancy drug called DES. It

was some kind of synthetic estrogen that has a long complicated name and they

have since banned it. But I think they still use it with farm animals. They 00:49:00found that first generation, second generation, and some third generation

offspring had statistically higher than normal chances of gender dysphoria, and

homosexuality. So, I heard that and I was like 'Oh! Well there we go, okay that

makes sense now.'

BOGGS: So you kind of embraced that?

ELMORE: Yeah, well I guess I'm just kind of stuck with it. It's the genetic

lottery. My mom didn't get it, my brother didn't get it, but yay I did.

BOGGS: Did you ever talk to your aunt about anything?

ELMORE: Mmhm, she was great. I could tell her that I had a secret urge to go

slice up people and put them in dumpster and she'd be like, 'Oh why do you want

to do that?' She couldn't be phased. 00:50:00So, she was always my go to for, I feel

something strange and I want to talk to someone about it.

BOGGS: So in your family it was mainly your mom and your aunt?

ELMORE: Mmhm, my dad hasn't had a problem with this, but he's always been the

more pragmatic one. When I first told him I'm transgender after he processed it,

he was more concerned about things like my career, the job I was at and how that

would be affected. But that's who he is and he knew that if it was gonna make me

happier, then it's what I needed to do. So they've been outstandingly

supportive. My mom and me have a better relationship now than I think we ever

have just because we have so much in common. We went and got our feet done

yesterday; we just hang out a lot and 00:51:00go shopping, and have wine nights together

and it's just like this whole new experience.

BOGGS: No kidding. So, as far as dating, you don't have to talk about it if you

don't want to but, how has that changed?

ELMORE: I avoided it mostly over the past couple years since I knew something

was probably on the horizon, so I avoided dating like the plague. That's not to

say that there weren't forays in the night, but I didn't actively pursue a

relationship. I actually had a date last weekend. That was my first date in a

good couple of years.

BOGGS: How did it go?

ELMORE: Great, it was really great. She was really cool. We met after a derby

bout; she bought me a shot cause she saw me 00:52:00play and said 'you kicked ass out

there, I need to buy you a shot!' I was like 'okay.'

BOGGS: Have you talked to her since?

ELMORE: Yeah we talk a lot. We've talked about how we are going to do our next

date because she lives in Fredericksburg, so we talked about maybe doing a home

and home sort of thing where I go to Fredericksburg one weekend and she comes to

Blacksburg one weekend. So we're working it out.

BOGGS: What would you do, what would you want to do as a date?

ELMORE: I have no idea, just kind of figure it out as we go along. Things like

the weather would have a play in it. Maybe we go to the Cascades that's always

fun, especially when it's frozen.

BOGGS: Yeah

ELMORE: It just depends. Maybe there's something crazy going on that weekend

that we can check out.

BOGGS: I don't have anymore questions. Is there anything else you want to talk

about? This has been incredibly interesting and 00:53:00 great.

ELMORE: Let me think. I don't know, are there any common themes that you've

found in other interviews?

BOGGS: Well you're our first.

ELMORE: Oh! Patient zero. Yeah in general I think I have been amazed at how I'm

not sure if accepting is the right word, but willingness to roll with, or maybe

it is acceptance, I don't know. When I think about people, real Appalachian

people have really been with this whole thing. I think a lot of it has to do 00:54:00with how happy someone really is when they go through with it and realizing that

you're basically the same person just kind of different on the outside and maybe

a few different mannerisms, but sense of humor goes a long way with people. That

is probably the biggest thing that I have observed and experienced with how to

deal with people you might be leery of being yourself around.

BOGGS: Well thank you so much. This was a great first interview.

ELMORE: Good happy to do it.