Ashley Jane Morgan
Identifies as a woman (she/ her pronouns)
Ashley Jane: My name is actually Jane Morgan. I'm a transgender woman. I identify as transsexual. I was born genetically male. I lived 40 years of my life and had no idea why I felt different or why I thought different. If you've ever had anxiety, that little softball that you have in your chest that eventually goes away. For me it did not go away, and I never understood why. My story really started when I was 4 years old. I was standing in my mother's walk-in closet in 1975 wearing her clothes and not understanding why. Why it was kind of cool. Why I was so nervous to get caught. I went through adolescence still occasionally wearing my mother's clothes. She loves the way I tell that story… I had girlfriends throughout life, throughout my late teens and early 20s. They were always about my size. So, I found myself occasionally wearing their clothes and I didn't know why. Well, finally, I resolved this. “I'm weird, and this is just my thing.” Nobody knew or ever caught me. And it just felt right. And it wasn't like it was a daily thing or even a weekly thing. It just happened.
Fast Forward
Ashley Jane: So fast forward through five children and a marriage. I turned 40. I decided, “You know what? I really want to see these kids grow up. I really need to start taking care of myself.” I had kind of been on a bit of a self-destructive path. I drank way too much. I did my fair share of other things growing up, whether it be drugs or risky behavior… you know, just to kind of feel alive. Without getting into a real long, drawn-out thing, a chain of events happened, and I decided it was time to put myself into therapy. Not because I was going nuts or anything... I just had to resolve the softball. I also had been wearing women's clothes for 40 some years. Maybe I ought to talk about that too.
So about six weeks into therapy, I walked in, and I had no idea what a transgender person was. I had that preconceived stereotype of a guy in a dress with a beard, in a smoky room, or in a back alley bar… That was my idea of a transgender person. Six weeks down, I look at my therapist and I say, “You know, I think I might be transgender.” And she smiled. She let out a gasp, sunk back in her seat and said, "Oh, thank God, now we can do something". And from that moment on, basically, Ashley was born. It wasn't like a light switch where one minute I didn't know and the next minute I knew… It was a process. It was a very painful process of self-acceptance and self-discovery...
Living Two Lives
Ashley Jane: I'm probably as happy as I've ever been in my entire life. It doesn't mean I'm not emotional, because I'm now 100 percent chemically female. It matches my brain, and now my body is starting to match everything. That's what it is. So, that's really the Reader's Digest version. I’m currently self-employed. I own a construction company of all things. I've been in a highly masculinized world for 25 years of my career. So far, my business has not been affected by this. As a matter of fact, I think in some ways it's gotten better because people see the real me. I realize I don't 100 percent pass as a woman, and I'm not really concerned about that, because this is just me and I live in a world where you can take me, or you can leave me. All I expected was to be treated like a human being. Anything else I have to earn.
Interviewer: Can you expand a little on the stuff that came up for you? Do you want to get into the part about your family?
Ashley Jane: I got into it with a broad brush.
Interviewer: But that is one of the subjects that people are interested in.
Ashley Jane: I guess with my wife, soon to be ex-wife… She wanted to support me as best she could… but she did not want to be with a woman. I understood that. I didn't like it, but I understood, because at the end of the day, I loved that woman… She's the mother of my children. A lot of couples can get through this. Now, that may mean you have to redefine the relationship. That may mean there's lots of give-and-take on either side. There are so many different ways to do it. And we couldn't have picked a worse wrong way… I'm not blaming. She was supportive, but I wanted more. I was allowed to spend time as Ashley, but not in the house, not in Westminster, not around our children, not around our friends. When you start living two lives, especially when you're living half of a life as yourself, that life becomes very compelling. It’s like walking into a tunnel. You want to get from standing here male wearing jeans and a T-shirt, all the way to the other side, completely transitioned. When you go through this process, when you're running for the end of that tunnel, all of a sudden, the reality that is your life jumps right in front of your face. “Oh, my gosh. I have a wife. I have kids. I have a life. I have a business. I have a house. I have a dog. Me being transgender doesn't fit into this." And then you backpedal. I mean, I've packed all my stuff up before, put it in a box and put it in the attic. It's not a fun thing to play tug-of-war... I had to make the decision not to be transgender. I had to make the decision to live a happy life. A lot of people will say, “Well, you made a choice.” Well, I didn't choose this. My wife didn't choose this. However, I had 40 some years to come to terms with it. She had months. As soon as I found this out, I wanted to go out in the world. The second I accepted that level of it, I wanted to go out in this world.
You kind of get to the point where you want to climb to the top of the mountain and say, “Hey! Here I am! I’ve been hiding from the world for all these years!” So time goes by. My wife encourages me to spend as much time as I need to live that life. And at the same time, I'm stuck in this tug-of-war. Both of our stories have their struggles. And it's sad that it really turned out that way. There's no handbook for this. You can't go to the library and grab a book that says, “Step one, we're going to do this." She encouraged me at one point to develop a complete other identity, which is what I did. I started a jewelry business. I made a tremendous amount of friends, but none who were transgender. I would go to conferences. There are transgender conferences all over the country. I had a good job, so I could afford to do all of that. I had fun with it. The problem is, every time I went home, it got that much harder to take off the wig
I was told a lot, “We're not good enough for you.” It wasn't about them. It was about me. Sadly, that sounds very selfish and there's a lot about transition that is selfish. However, I can't be a good parent to my children if I'm not the best version of me, and if I'm walking around as a completely miserable bastard - As my wife used to call me - life isn't any fun. I'm not using that to make her look bad. I'm saying that because that was really something that was part of the conversation. Now that I've accepted it, I'm not this miserable person anymore. Well, she fell in love with that miserable person. The reality is, like any of you in a relationship, nobody's perfect. There are things and qualities about everybody that you meet, that you learn to overlook. That's where you get to love and care. My wife and I care very deeply for each other. Before I came out to her, we were about as close as we'd ever been in the 23 years that we've been together. That's where I felt comfortable coming out to her and saying, “Hey, I have this secret, I like to wear women’s clothes." And boy, that got out of control fast. At the end of the day, my wife couldn't deal with me… We were arguing like there was no tomorrow. We’re now getting a divorce. It breaks my heart for my wife and I, for my kids and I, but I'm still here today, and I'm still here to be a parent to my children.
41 percent of all transgender people attempt suicide at some point in time. That is a staggering, disgusting statistic. If you know anything about human population, 41 percent would equal to bodies everywhere… As far as my kids go, we have like the best relationship in the world. I'm not mom and I have said from the very beginning. I don't want to be mom. I was there for all five births. I know where they came from. It wasn't me, but I was there. I love all of my kids dearly.
Interviewer: Thank you. Do you guys feel comfortable asking questions yourself?
Ashley Jane: I will say that it is impossible to offend me. There is no question that is off limits. There is no question, other than intimate things about my wife, and our relationship… If you want to ask me about surgery, ask it. I don't care.
Student: You said you own a construction business. My dad does as well. He says very often it's not what you know but who you know. How did that affect getting jobs when people knew that you had changed?
Ashley Jane: Well, I do residential construction… I also work for property managers, so I'm a little bit more isolated. The biggest help in my mind is my voice… I can't talk like this to you in Ashley's voice because it hurts. And it's going to take a couple of years before I can raise my pitch… Which is fine, because again, this is who I am. But I've come out to customers that were repeat customers. The question is always the same, “Are you happy?”, and the answer is always, “Oh, my God, yes.”
Interviewer: Congratulations. We're happy for you.
Ashley Jane: This was not supposed to happen. I do not want to sound conceited or self-serving or anything like that. I have been very fortunate… I have not lost any customers that I'm aware of. Like I said, my business this year is doing phenomenal. My employees are all fine with it. My foreman, who's 63 years old, born and raised in Carroll County, he came across Ashley one day by accident. He came back to the office when he wasn't supposed to. Thankfully it was right around Halloween, because it helped break the ice a little bit. He looked inside and we were eye-to-eye. And he leaned his head and he said, “Rachel, who was that? Was that Sean?” Rachel's got her head in her hands because she'd known forever. I'm in the back room and I'm like, “John, we really need to talk about this.” And he's like, “What? Why are you dressed as a woman? What's going on?” And I said, “Okay, can I just say this, if I walk out of this room, are you not going to freak out because you're 63 and if you have a heart attack and die, I'm really not going to be happy.” “No, I'm fine.” So, I walked out of the room and I said, “Well, Hi, John, this is Ashley. Nice to meet you. I'm a transgender woman.” His eyes got big and he said, “I don't have a problem with it.” He said, “I have a Gay cousin.” Everybody's got a gay cousin. It was just phenomenal. We had a long conversation and he said, “If this is who you are, who am I to judge you? If you can run this business, and it's successful, I will continue to work for you.” Now I have this man's financial future in my hands. This is not something I take lightly.
Student: So, I have a question in terms of your family and your wife. If you could go back and redo how you handled the transition, would you go back, and what would you do?
Ashley Jane: Sure, there are things in all of our lives, big or small, that we would go back and change. How I would change it? I would demand it. That's a very strong word for me if you knew me personally. I would demand that my wife and I put ourselves in front of a gender therapist who could do marriage counseling. We saw one of those about a year and seven months after all this came to light and there was already too much water under the bridge. It also didn't help that the marriage therapist spent three hours one night trying to explain to her the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity, because my wife was concerned that at some point that I was going to like men, that I would no longer have a use for her. Nothing could be further from the truth. I was in a committed relationship. As far as my children, as soon as we figured this out, yeah, we should have all seen somebody to help us deal… Like I said, there's no guide to this. And even the therapists don't know what to do other than “Let's just try and get everybody through this. Let's let everybody be heard.”
My kids finally just went into therapy in December after numerous arguments and unpleasantness and lots and lots of money spent on lawyers. It has not been fun. I don't know if some of it could have even been undone. I don't know if some of it even could have been avoided…
Interviewer: I had a couple questions, but the first is about your name. I just first want to know how you chose [it]. Was it difficult to get used to being called Ashely all the time?
Ashley Jane: That's actually a very good question. I tried to name all five of my kids Ashley. I always loved that name. I don't know. For whatever reason, I've always loved the name. When I went through this, I thought, OK, you know what? I think you're going to be Ashley, because it just fit. I had joined a cross-dressing group in Baltimore to have a safe place to go. I didn't realize at the time I wasn't a cross-dresser. I thought “What if I just cross-dress on the weekends? It's all good. It'll go away.” They said, dear, you've got to pick a name because we're not going to call you Sean. I picked Ashley. My last name is Morgan now. I changed it to protect my kids. I knew that if I transitioned, I wasn't going to leave Westminster. I was not going to run away. Typically, transgender people, when they transition, will pack their bags and they will move as far away as they can possibly start a new life where nobody knows them. I wasn't going to run away from this because there was something bigger here for me to do. So, Morgan was another fun name that I really liked. And I think I tried to name two of the kids Morgan... At some point in time, I decided I needed a middle name. I wanted to keep something from my old name and my middle initial used to be Jeff. So, like, “Jane. Jane, Jane. Oh, right. Jane - Jane Eyre, my favorite book. I've read it two dozen times. I love that book because Jane basically lived her life the way that she wanted to live it, despite everything that was going on...
Student: Was it hard for you?
Ashley Jane: Yes, it was different because you're walking along through life and you've been Sean for forty years and somebody says, "Ashley?” Wait, they are talking to me. One of the other things that happens that's a little bizarre is the word actually sounds a lot like Actually. So, when people will be having a conversation and they'll say, “Well, actually the other night” I'm like, “What?”
Interviewer: I'm just wondering if there's been any changes of acceptance in Carroll County? I've lived here for a long time and I know it's not the most fun place.
Ashley Jane: Well, I've noticed a huge change in acceptance because I don't ever have any issues with it. I go where I want and do what I want. If I need to go to the grocery store, I go to the grocery store. If I want to go have a glass of wine I go have a glass of wine. I go to work this way. Well, since I'm in the construction business, I not quite like this. I put my hair back in a ponytail and I put on my work clothes. Yes, I wear makeup every day even to the job site, because there's still a little bit of smoke and mirrors left in my face to cover up… No one has ever, ever said anything to me that was any less than polite. Now looks, yes, [it] happens. You know, the tug on the shoulder and whisper in the air... I don't have to live with those people. [I’m] not in a relationship with them. They don't have to come home with me. So, it doesn't really bother me. A I said it before, this is who I am. Take it or leave. That may again sound egocentric, but there is self-preservation in that.
Student: What was the worst thing that ever happened to you?
Ashley Jane: The worst thing ever happened was the Fourth of July, last year. Two guys came back to a party that I was at, at a friend's house. They were tremendously intoxicated, and they were whispering and giggling. "Hey, you know, that's a guy." I heard it out of the corner of my ear, so to speak. I turned around on a dime and walked over to them and I said, "I'm sorry. Do you see something funny? Would you like to talk about this?" And immediately both of their eyes got big and they stopped talking. I said, "Just be polite. That's all I ask." And they never said another word. I made my point. That really is about the worst that I've ever heard. No one has yelled at me. I've never gotten anything derogatory. I kind of ignore a lot of the noise, too. But I'm very aware of my surroundings. That is an absolute must. I have all of the issues of the genetic woman out in public, and I have one more. If I'm attacked in a parking lot and somebody gets me to the point where they figure things out, I'm dead, plain and simple. There's no coming back from that because whoever it is that is attacking me is either going to be so pissed off about… or so embarrassed that they would never want to be identified. So, I'm immediately dead. I'm very aware of my surroundings. No matter where I go, whether it's in Westminster or West Baltimore I scan rooms. I scan while walking down the sidewalk. I'm constantly aware.
Student: Are you Ashley everywhere you go?
Ashley Jane: I used to travel for work. I’ve traveled for three years of my life all over the world. Ashley has walked down most sidewalks of every city. One of the most frightening things in the world was walking through the streets of Australia like this, or walking down the street in Singapore, which could have actually landed me in jail. But again, if you don't make a whole lot of waves, and you don't make a spectacle of yourself or jump up and down and say, "Hey, look at me!", people don't really ever give you a second look. People are very self-absorbed. At the Mall during Christmas time, I can walk through Charlteson Town Center, and it can be elbow-to-elbow with fifty thousand of your closest friends. Most of the time they don't really give me a second look.
Interviewer: What about the term crossdresser?
Ashley Jane: I think when you're in my shoes, it becomes a label. It really becomes how do you identify. I identify as a transgender woman. I am transsexual. That is how I define myself. We've thrown out the word crossdresser. In my mind, my best definition of a crossdresser for people who go out on the weekends and dress like a woman, dress like a man, and enjoys hanging out with their friends, or maybe just enjoys walking down the street by themselves… That's a crossdresser.
Interviewer: What about transvestite?
Ashley Jane: They haven't used that one freely in a long time and they probably won't anymore in the news media because [it] is really kind of slang. A transvestite used to be known as the person that dresses in the opposite gender and gets a sexual thrill out of it. You have no idea how many conversations I've had with people that think that I get a sexual thrill out of this. I don't at all whatsoever. That is the furthest thing from my mind. I'm just a person. If I did, I would tell you, because I'm very honest and open about this. There is a facet of the population that do get thrills out of this. And sometimes, it's not even a sexual thrill. Sometimes it's just an emotional one. So, it's like, “Wow, this is the way I feel, and I'm different. I'm doing something that’s risky.” You heard me talk about risky behavior before. My risky behavior was a little different than dressing as the opposite gender. I was going out and getting drunk on a Friday night and doing stupid stuff like jumping off roofs of houses or seeing who could take their bicycle and do the dumbest thing in the world with it. I was very much a teenage boy and that was what really threw my parents for a loop when I came out, because they were like, "There's no way you're transgender. you used to ride dirt bikes and get dirty and you weren't feminine." A lot of people who I come out to, they say, "Well, you're not flaming at all" How many flaming women do you know? That's just somebody's personality. It's a stereotype.
Student: How do you deal with telling people you hope to begin a relationship with? Do you tell them right away? When do you decide, and how do you tell them?
Ashley Jane: That's actually a pretty easy question with a little bit of a complicated beginning. I've been separated from my wife since June of last year. The idea of being in a relationship right now, well, I'd rather cut my foot off than entertain the idea. It's not what I'm ready for, but it doesn't mean that I don't make friends, and it doesn't mean that I haven't been to the bar a couple of times. When somebody had a lot to drink, that little doorman that keeps us from saying things we wouldn’t normally say goes away. People are very raw when they're drunk. Sometimes that's good and sometimes that's bad. In my case, it's at least entertaining. This young gentleman walked up to me in a bar and said, "Has anyone ever told you how gorgeous you are?" I looked at him, smiled and I said, "Oh, that's very sweet. Thank you.” Then he asked what I liked to drink. I said, “Well, I am a bit of a whiskey girl.” He disappeared and comes back and has two glasses of Jameson. He asked if I drink beer. I said, "I typically I like Blue Moon but if we're going to drink, James said, you might as well get Coors Light because I'll be everybody's best friend.” And of course, his eyes lit up, and I was like, “Oh god, that was really the wrong thing to say."
This is all uncharted territory. I had been with the same person for 23 years. The last time I was in the dating world, I was the one standing there with the two glasses of Jameson. This was completely new, and I was just flirtatious and smiled. He kept telling me how beautiful I was and how great my personality was, which I knew was the biggest line in the world. I almost asked him when the last time he was at the eye doctor, but I didn't want to offend. I told him my thoughts and aspirations but strictly from the perspective of a woman. There was nothing about me being transgender in that conversation at that point. As the night went on, he asked if I would like to go back to my place. And I said, "Yeah… I don't think that's going to happen. Look, you and I need to have a conversation". I looked him in the eye, and I said, "Do you realize that I'm transgender?” He gave me a response that I was completely not expecting. He said, "So, does that mean you have a dick?” So, of course, I'm blushing. And I got the full-court press for at least a half hour until finally it was time to go. I laughed and I said, “You know, it's been very nice talking to you. Friend me on Facebook. Here's my number. Text me.” Not that I was looking to be in a relationship with him, but it was a learning experience as to what to expect from men. And so, I didn't take him home. I didn't sleep with him, and I still didn't hear from him. I ran into him about a week later. He acted like he didn't even know me, because I guess when he was drunk, he thought he had a chance to be with somebody. It didn't matter whether I was transgender. I guess I was just a warm body. Most everyone in Westminster knows that I'm transgender. I guess he didn't want to be associated [one].
Student: I’m curious if you were religious, and did [transition] affect anything?
Ashley Jane: I was raised Catholic, so it was beautiful, because if you didn't talk about it, it didn't exist. And I grew up with that. At home or in the family, there could be the worst thing happening, and if you didn't talk about that 500-pound elephant, it didn't matter. The same kind of thing happened through transition. I was very scared of religion when I was young. A lot of trans people, when they go to bed at night will pray that when they wake up they will be a girl or a boy or whatever gender they are not. I went to bed and prayed that it just didn't feel wrong anymore. And every morning I would wake up and still feel the same. So, my relationship and my religion changed over time. I became completely non-religious. There was no such thing as god. There was nothing because there's no way any greater being would allow a person to suffer and feel like [this] their entire life… I now have found my relationship with god again... I go to church almost every Sunday or as many Sundays as I can... I joined an Episcopal church in Ellicott City because it was out of town. That place is very special to me. It was the first place that I walked into blind where no one knew me. Nobody had a clue who I was, and they welcomed me with open arms. Everyone in the church during the peace offering got up and said hello and shook my hand… Every person in that church came thanked me for coming. It didn't matter that I was transgender. This was a couple of years ago. It was very obvious that I was trans. I'm not saying that I completely pass now, but it's a lot less obvious than it used to be. And they didn't care. They just didn't care… So, I found that relationship again with god. I occasionally will pray the rosary. I say a prayer every night before bed. I'm raising my two little ones to have some religion in their lives. I think it's a very good thing, whatever your religious view is, to show them that [religion] is an option. I don't force it on them. If that's something that they want to continue as they get older, that's fine. If they don't, it's not the end of the world. When I was growing up, if you didn't go to church, you better be dead or on fire.
Student: How do you approach a situation where you a person misgenders you?
Ashley Jane: Well, the company line at transgender headquarters is basically to have a conversation with the transgender person and find out what they prefer. Now, granted, if you didn't know they were transgender, or you didn't want to approach it like that, you basically have to go with the pronouns that they say. That probably is the best thing to do. I am the exception to the transgender rule in that you can't offend me. If you accidentally misgender me, it's not the end of the world. Just don't call me Sean. That just doesn't fit.
On Personal Responsibility
Ashley Jane: It bothers me that transgender community as a whole expects to be treated differently, and they expect to be treated special. Nothing could be further from the truth. The only thing in this life, in my opinion, that someone should expect is to be treated like a human being. Anything outside of that is up to the person. I preach a lot of personal responsibility. Take responsibility and follow your dreams. You know, you kind of liken it to, if you go to a movie and it sucks, you get up and leave. So, if there's something in your life that is not making you happy, you need to take charge of that. I lived for years of being completely miserable and I'll never live another day like that again.
Student: Do your children call you dad?
Ashley Jane: I'm not Mom and I don't ever want anybody to address me as mom, because that's offensive to my wife… It's offensive because she's mom. My little ones out in public call me dad. And have I gotten some strange looks? Absolutely. It doesn't matter to me. I'm dad. I can't change that. I don't want to change that. I fathered those children. I love each and every one of them. Each and every one of them were intentionally brought into this world out of love. So, there's no real misconception about how they got here. And there certainly isn't going to be any leaving that behind.
Interviewer: How did you get started on writing a book?
Ashley Jane: Well, I go to a lot of transgender conferences. It seems that at every transgender conference there is some lost soul that finds me, and we end up hitting it off, and we have a friendship that lasts beyond that conference. For example, I went to the Southern Comfort Conference, which was in Atlanta. I stepped onto an elevator and I went up instead of down. I get all the way to the top and this fiery redhead, cis-woman jumps into the elevator and says she just made a sale on her line of clothing. Now, remember that this hotel is full of 600 of my closest transgender friends. So, you know, there's like one cis- woman to every 10 trans people. It was like a needle in a haystack. We started talking. Just small talk in an elevator. That conversation ended 10 hours later at five o'clock in the morning at the cafe in the hotel, because we hit it off so well. We laughed together, cried together, and I just stayed. We now help each other with our businesses. She's an image consultant. Let's just say you decide, “Okay, I'm going to transition. [But] I don't know the first thing about being a woman.” So, you call Gwen and say, “Gwen, show me how to be a woman.” And she will take you shopping and buy your clothes. She will help you with your hair, your makeup. Her business revolves around that. Now she's like a starving artist because the transgender community as a whole is completely broke, mainly because they can't find jobs. They have all kinds of limited access to employment. Some of them shoot themselves in the foot, and some of it is because of discrimination. My friend Lynne, who lives in New York, does work for The New Yorker and New York magazine and a couple of other publications up in New York. We met at the Philly Trans Health Conference. She has a trans daughter. She saw me selling jewelry and she came up and we just hit it off and we traded phone numbers. And she really wanted to talk to me because she wanted to try and understand her 20-something trans daughter. Within a couple of days, I heard from Lynne. She called me and she said, “I've been following your Facebook page and I'm remembering our conversation. I want to tell your story. She said, you've got to tell it to me first, but I want to tell your story.” So, that's when it started. I drove up to New York and I sat on her couch in her apartment.... For seven and a half hours, I told my story. This story that you're hearing me tell now. I told the whole version without leaving anything out, and eventually we fell asleep. 7.5 hours later. Our lives are made up of a million small stories as we grow old. Think about it. At Christmas time you're talking to your family about what Aunt Tillie did three Christmases ago when she got drunk. It's a small story. When I told my story, I told a thousand small stories all at one time. There is nothing more emotionally taxing than condensing your life into 7.5 hours. When I was finished, I felt like somebody had beaten me up. I cried. I sobbed. I laughed. We got to the point where we had to open a bottle of wine because we just couldn't take it anymore. If you think about it on the scale of your life, most you guys are in your twenties right now. Take and double that, because I'll be forty-four next month in May. So, the experiences and stories add up.
Interviewer: What's it like losing male privilege or realizing the difference between?
Ashley Jane: White male privilege is alive and well, and I don't have it anymore. I don't miss it. I just deal with it differently. Case in point, I was meeting someone the other night for a glass of wine. I was standing outside of my car in a little parking lot that's across from Johanson's, and there was a parking space next to me and I'm off in my own mobile world… [then] I hear this man, "Hey, lady". I looked up. What, you're talking to me?
Question: Can you see that person is trying to park, pay attention, get out of the way?
Ashley Jane: Like, well, yeah, and there goes the male privilege, because nobody ever would have said that to me as a guy. They wouldn't even have thought about it... The first time a man helped open a door for me, I almost fell over, because I wasn't prepared for that. I didn't think about this stuff. I didn't think about all the consequences or all the things that were going to change. You certainly do get talked to differently. Most of you here are cis-women. You may not even pick up on it because what you're used to is what you're used to. You don't ever remember it being any other way. Now, I do see with trans men a lot of times that they get male privilege. For whatever reason, it's a lot easier to pass off as a trans man than it is to pass off as a trans woman.
Student: I am in a class for hair. We talk a lot about gender and gender differences. What about your hair?
Ashley Jane: I hide behind my hair. I will be 100 percent honest with you. I keep three wigs at all times and it's all the same exact wig. When I order it, I mark 3 in the box and I get 3 of them. I rotate them. One of them is always a ponytail because once you put a wig in a ponytail, it destroys it. And it's not, like, your regular hair where it's going to grow. You're pretty much stuck with it. This set of wigs that I have right now are starting to get a little bit rattier than I like, but they stopped making this one. The last time they stopped making a wig, it took me a year before I could find one I liked again. People have said you need to have shorter hair. That's more in style. You look like you're from the 80s. Okay, well, fine. There's a lot of people who still look like they’re in the 80s. Leave me alone… So, yes, absolutely. Female is hair to me. A woman has long hair. Now you have short hair. You're a woman. But that's what you're comfortable with. And for me, I was always going to have long hair, until somebody can talk me out of it. But there is a nice thing about a wig. In the morning when you wake up, you get out of the shower, you have your normal hair or your regular hair, you walk over, you grab your wig off the wig stand, you shake like this, turn it inside out, throw it on, do this and you're done. I'm growing my natural hair out right now. I have my last haircut was in October. My hair is about four inches long.
Interviewer: I think hair is where we will finish. Thank you.
Fast Forward
Ashley Jane: So fast forward through five children and a marriage. I turned 40. I decided, “You know what? I really want to see these kids grow up. I really need to start taking care of myself.” I had kind of been on a bit of a self-destructive path. I drank way too much. I did my fair share of other things growing up, whether it be drugs or risky behavior… you know, just to kind of feel alive. Without getting into a real long, drawn-out thing, a chain of events happened, and I decided it was time to put myself into therapy. Not because I was going nuts or anything... I just had to resolve the softball. I also had been wearing women's clothes for 40 some years. Maybe I ought to talk about that too.
So about six weeks into therapy, I walked in, and I had no idea what a transgender person was. I had that preconceived stereotype of a guy in a dress with a beard, in a smoky room, or in a back alley bar… That was my idea of a transgender person. Six weeks down, I look at my therapist and I say, “You know, I think I might be transgender.” And she smiled. She let out a gasp, sunk back in her seat and said, "Oh, thank God, now we can do something". And from that moment on, basically, Ashley was born. It wasn't like a light switch where one minute I didn't know and the next minute I knew… It was a process. It was a very painful process of self-acceptance and self-discovery...
Living Two Lives
Ashley Jane: I'm probably as happy as I've ever been in my entire life. It doesn't mean I'm not emotional, because I'm now 100 percent chemically female. It matches my brain, and now my body is starting to match everything. That's what it is. So, that's really the Reader's Digest version. I’m currently self-employed. I own a construction company of all things. I've been in a highly masculinized world for 25 years of my career. So far, my business has not been affected by this. As a matter of fact, I think in some ways it's gotten better because people see the real me. I realize I don't 100 percent pass as a woman, and I'm not really concerned about that, because this is just me and I live in a world where you can take me, or you can leave me. All I expected was to be treated like a human being. Anything else I have to earn.
Interviewer: Can you expand a little on the stuff that came up for you? Do you want to get into the part about your family?
Ashley Jane: I got into it with a broad brush.
Interviewer: But that is one of the subjects that people are interested in.
Ashley Jane: I guess with my wife, soon to be ex-wife… She wanted to support me as best she could… but she did not want to be with a woman. I understood that. I didn't like it, but I understood, because at the end of the day, I loved that woman… She's the mother of my children. A lot of couples can get through this. Now, that may mean you have to redefine the relationship. That may mean there's lots of give-and-take on either side. There are so many different ways to do it. And we couldn't have picked a worse wrong way… I'm not blaming. She was supportive, but I wanted more. I was allowed to spend time as Ashley, but not in the house, not in Westminster, not around our children, not around our friends. When you start living two lives, especially when you're living half of a life as yourself, that life becomes very compelling. It’s like walking into a tunnel. You want to get from standing here male wearing jeans and a T-shirt, all the way to the other side, completely transitioned. When you go through this process, when you're running for the end of that tunnel, all of a sudden, the reality that is your life jumps right in front of your face. “Oh, my gosh. I have a wife. I have kids. I have a life. I have a business. I have a house. I have a dog. Me being transgender doesn't fit into this." And then you backpedal. I mean, I've packed all my stuff up before, put it in a box and put it in the attic. It's not a fun thing to play tug-of-war... I had to make the decision not to be transgender. I had to make the decision to live a happy life. A lot of people will say, “Well, you made a choice.” Well, I didn't choose this. My wife didn't choose this. However, I had 40 some years to come to terms with it. She had months. As soon as I found this out, I wanted to go out in the world. The second I accepted that level of it, I wanted to go out in this world.
You kind of get to the point where you want to climb to the top of the mountain and say, “Hey! Here I am! I’ve been hiding from the world for all these years!” So time goes by. My wife encourages me to spend as much time as I need to live that life. And at the same time, I'm stuck in this tug-of-war. Both of our stories have their struggles. And it's sad that it really turned out that way. There's no handbook for this. You can't go to the library and grab a book that says, “Step one, we're going to do this." She encouraged me at one point to develop a complete other identity, which is what I did. I started a jewelry business. I made a tremendous amount of friends, but none who were transgender. I would go to conferences. There are transgender conferences all over the country. I had a good job, so I could afford to do all of that. I had fun with it. The problem is, every time I went home, it got that much harder to take off the wig
I was told a lot, “We're not good enough for you.” It wasn't about them. It was about me. Sadly, that sounds very selfish and there's a lot about transition that is selfish. However, I can't be a good parent to my children if I'm not the best version of me, and if I'm walking around as a completely miserable bastard - As my wife used to call me - life isn't any fun. I'm not using that to make her look bad. I'm saying that because that was really something that was part of the conversation. Now that I've accepted it, I'm not this miserable person anymore. Well, she fell in love with that miserable person. The reality is, like any of you in a relationship, nobody's perfect. There are things and qualities about everybody that you meet, that you learn to overlook. That's where you get to love and care. My wife and I care very deeply for each other. Before I came out to her, we were about as close as we'd ever been in the 23 years that we've been together. That's where I felt comfortable coming out to her and saying, “Hey, I have this secret, I like to wear women’s clothes." And boy, that got out of control fast. At the end of the day, my wife couldn't deal with me… We were arguing like there was no tomorrow. We’re now getting a divorce. It breaks my heart for my wife and I, for my kids and I, but I'm still here today, and I'm still here to be a parent to my children.
41 percent of all transgender people attempt suicide at some point in time. That is a staggering, disgusting statistic. If you know anything about human population, 41 percent would equal to bodies everywhere… As far as my kids go, we have like the best relationship in the world. I'm not mom and I have said from the very beginning. I don't want to be mom. I was there for all five births. I know where they came from. It wasn't me, but I was there. I love all of my kids dearly.
Interviewer: Thank you. Do you guys feel comfortable asking questions yourself?
Ashley Jane: I will say that it is impossible to offend me. There is no question that is off limits. There is no question, other than intimate things about my wife, and our relationship… If you want to ask me about surgery, ask it. I don't care.
Student: You said you own a construction business. My dad does as well. He says very often it's not what you know but who you know. How did that affect getting jobs when people knew that you had changed?
Ashley Jane: Well, I do residential construction… I also work for property managers, so I'm a little bit more isolated. The biggest help in my mind is my voice… I can't talk like this to you in Ashley's voice because it hurts. And it's going to take a couple of years before I can raise my pitch… Which is fine, because again, this is who I am. But I've come out to customers that were repeat customers. The question is always the same, “Are you happy?”, and the answer is always, “Oh, my God, yes.”
Interviewer: Congratulations. We're happy for you.
Ashley Jane: This was not supposed to happen. I do not want to sound conceited or self-serving or anything like that. I have been very fortunate… I have not lost any customers that I'm aware of. Like I said, my business this year is doing phenomenal. My employees are all fine with it. My foreman, who's 63 years old, born and raised in Carroll County, he came across Ashley one day by accident. He came back to the office when he wasn't supposed to. Thankfully it was right around Halloween, because it helped break the ice a little bit. He looked inside and we were eye-to-eye. And he leaned his head and he said, “Rachel, who was that? Was that Sean?” Rachel's got her head in her hands because she'd known forever. I'm in the back room and I'm like, “John, we really need to talk about this.” And he's like, “What? Why are you dressed as a woman? What's going on?” And I said, “Okay, can I just say this, if I walk out of this room, are you not going to freak out because you're 63 and if you have a heart attack and die, I'm really not going to be happy.” “No, I'm fine.” So, I walked out of the room and I said, “Well, Hi, John, this is Ashley. Nice to meet you. I'm a transgender woman.” His eyes got big and he said, “I don't have a problem with it.” He said, “I have a Gay cousin.” Everybody's got a gay cousin. It was just phenomenal. We had a long conversation and he said, “If this is who you are, who am I to judge you? If you can run this business, and it's successful, I will continue to work for you.” Now I have this man's financial future in my hands. This is not something I take lightly.
Student: So, I have a question in terms of your family and your wife. If you could go back and redo how you handled the transition, would you go back, and what would you do?
Ashley Jane: Sure, there are things in all of our lives, big or small, that we would go back and change. How I would change it? I would demand it. That's a very strong word for me if you knew me personally. I would demand that my wife and I put ourselves in front of a gender therapist who could do marriage counseling. We saw one of those about a year and seven months after all this came to light and there was already too much water under the bridge. It also didn't help that the marriage therapist spent three hours one night trying to explain to her the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity, because my wife was concerned that at some point that I was going to like men, that I would no longer have a use for her. Nothing could be further from the truth. I was in a committed relationship. As far as my children, as soon as we figured this out, yeah, we should have all seen somebody to help us deal… Like I said, there's no guide to this. And even the therapists don't know what to do other than “Let's just try and get everybody through this. Let's let everybody be heard.”
My kids finally just went into therapy in December after numerous arguments and unpleasantness and lots and lots of money spent on lawyers. It has not been fun. I don't know if some of it could have even been undone. I don't know if some of it even could have been avoided…
Interviewer: I had a couple questions, but the first is about your name. I just first want to know how you chose [it]. Was it difficult to get used to being called Ashely all the time?
Ashley Jane: That's actually a very good question. I tried to name all five of my kids Ashley. I always loved that name. I don't know. For whatever reason, I've always loved the name. When I went through this, I thought, OK, you know what? I think you're going to be Ashley, because it just fit. I had joined a cross-dressing group in Baltimore to have a safe place to go. I didn't realize at the time I wasn't a cross-dresser. I thought “What if I just cross-dress on the weekends? It's all good. It'll go away.” They said, dear, you've got to pick a name because we're not going to call you Sean. I picked Ashley. My last name is Morgan now. I changed it to protect my kids. I knew that if I transitioned, I wasn't going to leave Westminster. I was not going to run away. Typically, transgender people, when they transition, will pack their bags and they will move as far away as they can possibly start a new life where nobody knows them. I wasn't going to run away from this because there was something bigger here for me to do. So, Morgan was another fun name that I really liked. And I think I tried to name two of the kids Morgan... At some point in time, I decided I needed a middle name. I wanted to keep something from my old name and my middle initial used to be Jeff. So, like, “Jane. Jane, Jane. Oh, right. Jane - Jane Eyre, my favorite book. I've read it two dozen times. I love that book because Jane basically lived her life the way that she wanted to live it, despite everything that was going on...
Student: Was it hard for you?
Ashley Jane: Yes, it was different because you're walking along through life and you've been Sean for forty years and somebody says, "Ashley?” Wait, they are talking to me. One of the other things that happens that's a little bizarre is the word actually sounds a lot like Actually. So, when people will be having a conversation and they'll say, “Well, actually the other night” I'm like, “What?”
Interviewer: I'm just wondering if there's been any changes of acceptance in Carroll County? I've lived here for a long time and I know it's not the most fun place.
Ashley Jane: Well, I've noticed a huge change in acceptance because I don't ever have any issues with it. I go where I want and do what I want. If I need to go to the grocery store, I go to the grocery store. If I want to go have a glass of wine I go have a glass of wine. I go to work this way. Well, since I'm in the construction business, I not quite like this. I put my hair back in a ponytail and I put on my work clothes. Yes, I wear makeup every day even to the job site, because there's still a little bit of smoke and mirrors left in my face to cover up… No one has ever, ever said anything to me that was any less than polite. Now looks, yes, [it] happens. You know, the tug on the shoulder and whisper in the air... I don't have to live with those people. [I’m] not in a relationship with them. They don't have to come home with me. So, it doesn't really bother me. A I said it before, this is who I am. Take it or leave. That may again sound egocentric, but there is self-preservation in that.
Student: What was the worst thing that ever happened to you?
Ashley Jane: The worst thing ever happened was the Fourth of July, last year. Two guys came back to a party that I was at, at a friend's house. They were tremendously intoxicated, and they were whispering and giggling. "Hey, you know, that's a guy." I heard it out of the corner of my ear, so to speak. I turned around on a dime and walked over to them and I said, "I'm sorry. Do you see something funny? Would you like to talk about this?" And immediately both of their eyes got big and they stopped talking. I said, "Just be polite. That's all I ask." And they never said another word. I made my point. That really is about the worst that I've ever heard. No one has yelled at me. I've never gotten anything derogatory. I kind of ignore a lot of the noise, too. But I'm very aware of my surroundings. That is an absolute must. I have all of the issues of the genetic woman out in public, and I have one more. If I'm attacked in a parking lot and somebody gets me to the point where they figure things out, I'm dead, plain and simple. There's no coming back from that because whoever it is that is attacking me is either going to be so pissed off about… or so embarrassed that they would never want to be identified. So, I'm immediately dead. I'm very aware of my surroundings. No matter where I go, whether it's in Westminster or West Baltimore I scan rooms. I scan while walking down the sidewalk. I'm constantly aware.
Student: Are you Ashley everywhere you go?
Ashley Jane: I used to travel for work. I’ve traveled for three years of my life all over the world. Ashley has walked down most sidewalks of every city. One of the most frightening things in the world was walking through the streets of Australia like this, or walking down the street in Singapore, which could have actually landed me in jail. But again, if you don't make a whole lot of waves, and you don't make a spectacle of yourself or jump up and down and say, "Hey, look at me!", people don't really ever give you a second look. People are very self-absorbed. At the Mall during Christmas time, I can walk through Charlteson Town Center, and it can be elbow-to-elbow with fifty thousand of your closest friends. Most of the time they don't really give me a second look.
Interviewer: What about the term crossdresser?
Ashley Jane: I think when you're in my shoes, it becomes a label. It really becomes how do you identify. I identify as a transgender woman. I am transsexual. That is how I define myself. We've thrown out the word crossdresser. In my mind, my best definition of a crossdresser for people who go out on the weekends and dress like a woman, dress like a man, and enjoys hanging out with their friends, or maybe just enjoys walking down the street by themselves… That's a crossdresser.
Interviewer: What about transvestite?
Ashley Jane: They haven't used that one freely in a long time and they probably won't anymore in the news media because [it] is really kind of slang. A transvestite used to be known as the person that dresses in the opposite gender and gets a sexual thrill out of it. You have no idea how many conversations I've had with people that think that I get a sexual thrill out of this. I don't at all whatsoever. That is the furthest thing from my mind. I'm just a person. If I did, I would tell you, because I'm very honest and open about this. There is a facet of the population that do get thrills out of this. And sometimes, it's not even a sexual thrill. Sometimes it's just an emotional one. So, it's like, “Wow, this is the way I feel, and I'm different. I'm doing something that’s risky.” You heard me talk about risky behavior before. My risky behavior was a little different than dressing as the opposite gender. I was going out and getting drunk on a Friday night and doing stupid stuff like jumping off roofs of houses or seeing who could take their bicycle and do the dumbest thing in the world with it. I was very much a teenage boy and that was what really threw my parents for a loop when I came out, because they were like, "There's no way you're transgender. you used to ride dirt bikes and get dirty and you weren't feminine." A lot of people who I come out to, they say, "Well, you're not flaming at all" How many flaming women do you know? That's just somebody's personality. It's a stereotype.
Student: How do you deal with telling people you hope to begin a relationship with? Do you tell them right away? When do you decide, and how do you tell them?
Ashley Jane: That's actually a pretty easy question with a little bit of a complicated beginning. I've been separated from my wife since June of last year. The idea of being in a relationship right now, well, I'd rather cut my foot off than entertain the idea. It's not what I'm ready for, but it doesn't mean that I don't make friends, and it doesn't mean that I haven't been to the bar a couple of times. When somebody had a lot to drink, that little doorman that keeps us from saying things we wouldn’t normally say goes away. People are very raw when they're drunk. Sometimes that's good and sometimes that's bad. In my case, it's at least entertaining. This young gentleman walked up to me in a bar and said, "Has anyone ever told you how gorgeous you are?" I looked at him, smiled and I said, "Oh, that's very sweet. Thank you.” Then he asked what I liked to drink. I said, “Well, I am a bit of a whiskey girl.” He disappeared and comes back and has two glasses of Jameson. He asked if I drink beer. I said, "I typically I like Blue Moon but if we're going to drink, James said, you might as well get Coors Light because I'll be everybody's best friend.” And of course, his eyes lit up, and I was like, “Oh god, that was really the wrong thing to say."
This is all uncharted territory. I had been with the same person for 23 years. The last time I was in the dating world, I was the one standing there with the two glasses of Jameson. This was completely new, and I was just flirtatious and smiled. He kept telling me how beautiful I was and how great my personality was, which I knew was the biggest line in the world. I almost asked him when the last time he was at the eye doctor, but I didn't want to offend. I told him my thoughts and aspirations but strictly from the perspective of a woman. There was nothing about me being transgender in that conversation at that point. As the night went on, he asked if I would like to go back to my place. And I said, "Yeah… I don't think that's going to happen. Look, you and I need to have a conversation". I looked him in the eye, and I said, "Do you realize that I'm transgender?” He gave me a response that I was completely not expecting. He said, "So, does that mean you have a dick?” So, of course, I'm blushing. And I got the full-court press for at least a half hour until finally it was time to go. I laughed and I said, “You know, it's been very nice talking to you. Friend me on Facebook. Here's my number. Text me.” Not that I was looking to be in a relationship with him, but it was a learning experience as to what to expect from men. And so, I didn't take him home. I didn't sleep with him, and I still didn't hear from him. I ran into him about a week later. He acted like he didn't even know me, because I guess when he was drunk, he thought he had a chance to be with somebody. It didn't matter whether I was transgender. I guess I was just a warm body. Most everyone in Westminster knows that I'm transgender. I guess he didn't want to be associated [one].
Student: I’m curious if you were religious, and did [transition] affect anything?
Ashley Jane: I was raised Catholic, so it was beautiful, because if you didn't talk about it, it didn't exist. And I grew up with that. At home or in the family, there could be the worst thing happening, and if you didn't talk about that 500-pound elephant, it didn't matter. The same kind of thing happened through transition. I was very scared of religion when I was young. A lot of trans people, when they go to bed at night will pray that when they wake up they will be a girl or a boy or whatever gender they are not. I went to bed and prayed that it just didn't feel wrong anymore. And every morning I would wake up and still feel the same. So, my relationship and my religion changed over time. I became completely non-religious. There was no such thing as god. There was nothing because there's no way any greater being would allow a person to suffer and feel like [this] their entire life… I now have found my relationship with god again... I go to church almost every Sunday or as many Sundays as I can... I joined an Episcopal church in Ellicott City because it was out of town. That place is very special to me. It was the first place that I walked into blind where no one knew me. Nobody had a clue who I was, and they welcomed me with open arms. Everyone in the church during the peace offering got up and said hello and shook my hand… Every person in that church came thanked me for coming. It didn't matter that I was transgender. This was a couple of years ago. It was very obvious that I was trans. I'm not saying that I completely pass now, but it's a lot less obvious than it used to be. And they didn't care. They just didn't care… So, I found that relationship again with god. I occasionally will pray the rosary. I say a prayer every night before bed. I'm raising my two little ones to have some religion in their lives. I think it's a very good thing, whatever your religious view is, to show them that [religion] is an option. I don't force it on them. If that's something that they want to continue as they get older, that's fine. If they don't, it's not the end of the world. When I was growing up, if you didn't go to church, you better be dead or on fire.
Student: How do you approach a situation where you a person misgenders you?
Ashley Jane: Well, the company line at transgender headquarters is basically to have a conversation with the transgender person and find out what they prefer. Now, granted, if you didn't know they were transgender, or you didn't want to approach it like that, you basically have to go with the pronouns that they say. That probably is the best thing to do. I am the exception to the transgender rule in that you can't offend me. If you accidentally misgender me, it's not the end of the world. Just don't call me Sean. That just doesn't fit.
On Personal Responsibility
Ashley Jane: It bothers me that transgender community as a whole expects to be treated differently, and they expect to be treated special. Nothing could be further from the truth. The only thing in this life, in my opinion, that someone should expect is to be treated like a human being. Anything outside of that is up to the person. I preach a lot of personal responsibility. Take responsibility and follow your dreams. You know, you kind of liken it to, if you go to a movie and it sucks, you get up and leave. So, if there's something in your life that is not making you happy, you need to take charge of that. I lived for years of being completely miserable and I'll never live another day like that again.
Student: Do your children call you dad?
Ashley Jane: I'm not Mom and I don't ever want anybody to address me as mom, because that's offensive to my wife… It's offensive because she's mom. My little ones out in public call me dad. And have I gotten some strange looks? Absolutely. It doesn't matter to me. I'm dad. I can't change that. I don't want to change that. I fathered those children. I love each and every one of them. Each and every one of them were intentionally brought into this world out of love. So, there's no real misconception about how they got here. And there certainly isn't going to be any leaving that behind.
Interviewer: How did you get started on writing a book?
Ashley Jane: Well, I go to a lot of transgender conferences. It seems that at every transgender conference there is some lost soul that finds me, and we end up hitting it off, and we have a friendship that lasts beyond that conference. For example, I went to the Southern Comfort Conference, which was in Atlanta. I stepped onto an elevator and I went up instead of down. I get all the way to the top and this fiery redhead, cis-woman jumps into the elevator and says she just made a sale on her line of clothing. Now, remember that this hotel is full of 600 of my closest transgender friends. So, you know, there's like one cis- woman to every 10 trans people. It was like a needle in a haystack. We started talking. Just small talk in an elevator. That conversation ended 10 hours later at five o'clock in the morning at the cafe in the hotel, because we hit it off so well. We laughed together, cried together, and I just stayed. We now help each other with our businesses. She's an image consultant. Let's just say you decide, “Okay, I'm going to transition. [But] I don't know the first thing about being a woman.” So, you call Gwen and say, “Gwen, show me how to be a woman.” And she will take you shopping and buy your clothes. She will help you with your hair, your makeup. Her business revolves around that. Now she's like a starving artist because the transgender community as a whole is completely broke, mainly because they can't find jobs. They have all kinds of limited access to employment. Some of them shoot themselves in the foot, and some of it is because of discrimination. My friend Lynne, who lives in New York, does work for The New Yorker and New York magazine and a couple of other publications up in New York. We met at the Philly Trans Health Conference. She has a trans daughter. She saw me selling jewelry and she came up and we just hit it off and we traded phone numbers. And she really wanted to talk to me because she wanted to try and understand her 20-something trans daughter. Within a couple of days, I heard from Lynne. She called me and she said, “I've been following your Facebook page and I'm remembering our conversation. I want to tell your story. She said, you've got to tell it to me first, but I want to tell your story.” So, that's when it started. I drove up to New York and I sat on her couch in her apartment.... For seven and a half hours, I told my story. This story that you're hearing me tell now. I told the whole version without leaving anything out, and eventually we fell asleep. 7.5 hours later. Our lives are made up of a million small stories as we grow old. Think about it. At Christmas time you're talking to your family about what Aunt Tillie did three Christmases ago when she got drunk. It's a small story. When I told my story, I told a thousand small stories all at one time. There is nothing more emotionally taxing than condensing your life into 7.5 hours. When I was finished, I felt like somebody had beaten me up. I cried. I sobbed. I laughed. We got to the point where we had to open a bottle of wine because we just couldn't take it anymore. If you think about it on the scale of your life, most you guys are in your twenties right now. Take and double that, because I'll be forty-four next month in May. So, the experiences and stories add up.
Interviewer: What's it like losing male privilege or realizing the difference between?
Ashley Jane: White male privilege is alive and well, and I don't have it anymore. I don't miss it. I just deal with it differently. Case in point, I was meeting someone the other night for a glass of wine. I was standing outside of my car in a little parking lot that's across from Johanson's, and there was a parking space next to me and I'm off in my own mobile world… [then] I hear this man, "Hey, lady". I looked up. What, you're talking to me?
Question: Can you see that person is trying to park, pay attention, get out of the way?
Ashley Jane: Like, well, yeah, and there goes the male privilege, because nobody ever would have said that to me as a guy. They wouldn't even have thought about it... The first time a man helped open a door for me, I almost fell over, because I wasn't prepared for that. I didn't think about this stuff. I didn't think about all the consequences or all the things that were going to change. You certainly do get talked to differently. Most of you here are cis-women. You may not even pick up on it because what you're used to is what you're used to. You don't ever remember it being any other way. Now, I do see with trans men a lot of times that they get male privilege. For whatever reason, it's a lot easier to pass off as a trans man than it is to pass off as a trans woman.
Student: I am in a class for hair. We talk a lot about gender and gender differences. What about your hair?
Ashley Jane: I hide behind my hair. I will be 100 percent honest with you. I keep three wigs at all times and it's all the same exact wig. When I order it, I mark 3 in the box and I get 3 of them. I rotate them. One of them is always a ponytail because once you put a wig in a ponytail, it destroys it. And it's not, like, your regular hair where it's going to grow. You're pretty much stuck with it. This set of wigs that I have right now are starting to get a little bit rattier than I like, but they stopped making this one. The last time they stopped making a wig, it took me a year before I could find one I liked again. People have said you need to have shorter hair. That's more in style. You look like you're from the 80s. Okay, well, fine. There's a lot of people who still look like they’re in the 80s. Leave me alone… So, yes, absolutely. Female is hair to me. A woman has long hair. Now you have short hair. You're a woman. But that's what you're comfortable with. And for me, I was always going to have long hair, until somebody can talk me out of it. But there is a nice thing about a wig. In the morning when you wake up, you get out of the shower, you have your normal hair or your regular hair, you walk over, you grab your wig off the wig stand, you shake like this, turn it inside out, throw it on, do this and you're done. I'm growing my natural hair out right now. I have my last haircut was in October. My hair is about four inches long.
Interviewer: I think hair is where we will finish. Thank you.