Episode 2: “Grace”
In the 2nd episode of Becoming Visible: Trans Stories, Susan and Jack learn all about Grace Hansen, who besides working as a Database Administrator, a gymnastics coach, and is the only remaining founding member of The Rude Band. Grace is a transgender woman who shares her story with us about how she came out at age 53 with a wife and four grown kids in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Stay tuned after the episode to hear one of Grace's faves from the Rude Band!
TW: Suicide
Susan: On today's episode, we're joined by Grace Hansen from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. There's so much more to Grace than being a transwoman, but we're going to hear her story and her journey of being trans in South Dakota, and Jack is going to share a little bit of vocab with us.
Jack: Thanks, Susan. So vocab for this podcast is going to be "gender dysphoria".
Gender Dysphoria is a condition where a person experiences discomfort or distress, because there's a mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity.
Susan: Thanks so much, Jack. Let's go ahead and get started and listen to Grace's story. When was that that you ended up as Grace Ann Hanson.
Grace: I picked the name. And October 2018. At that point, I only come out to three people. When my therapist one of my sons and my mother a week later, I came up to my wife add another month, and I came out to a good dozen people that were really close to me. And at that point, it was really just a core group that knew what was going on with me. A few months later, I created a new Facebook account that had no relation to my old name and started connecting with community. But nobody knew me as who I was before. I just you know, people are still up. So I figured, you know why risk being being trolled by somebody when I just not quite ready for it yet. But I finally I finally had my name legally changed on December 14, 2020. And then about 20 or so days later on January 4, I posted a message on my old Facebook account and told everybody,
Susan: What were the reactions from that Facebook post?
Grace: Largely positive - the people who were not positive basically just ghosted me and didn't make a big thing out of it. It's like, nobody confronted me. They asked my mom or my wife or, or somebody who was connected to it, but it basically just left me alone. I think part of it was that, like I said, I hadn't figured out by then how to tell my story. And you know, when you, when you look at, you know, popular cultures view of a transgender person, you know, it's that one day, you're one gender and the next day, you're all dressed up and hey, look at me. And you know, there's no context behind it. There's no, there's no story. There's no explanation. And that's where people get really messed up. Because there's no chance to elicit any kind of empathy from anyone who is not part of that process. And what occurred to me was that I should tell the story from the beginning. Now, I sent that story to you, Susan. I shared it with you. And so you've read it.
Susan: It was on a medium, right?
Grace: Yeah, I posted, I write articles on Medium. And that's been a meme that I put out there. And my coming out story started in Kindergarten. So the Medium article was, um, you know, with some edits that I put in after I thought it through a little more, but I wrote that letter to some close friends who are not nearby. I had to find a way to tell them without, you know, calling up and saying, Oh, here's what's going on.
Susan: Because would that be just so horrible to have to call every single person and tell the story and be emotional and wait for their response?
Jack: That sounds exhausting.
Grace: It sounds like a nightmare. Yeah. I mean, that was the hard thing. I couldn't imagine having to tell that story to every person that meant something to me. But they also you wanted them to know, I wanted them to know. So I wrote the story.
Susan: Was that something that you ever, did you hear anything about?
Grace: Oh, yeah, like was that part of the conversation in 1960s and 70s, there was a 60 Minutes interview with Renee Richards kind of star. And, you know, she's well known as one of the earlier famous transgender people who was completely out. And I was riveted by it.
Susan: How old were you when you saw this or heard about it?
Grace: Third or fourth grade, around them? Yeah. I mean, it was the 70s. And I was like, literally just riveted to it. And you know, there wasn't a lot of other representation for quite a long time after that. The next time I saw any representation on popular media was the day the daytime talk shows.
Jack: Like Jerry Springer.
Grace: And none of that was nice, right? None of it was affirming at all. Because No, they weren't transgender women. They were really bad. And that wasn't good at all. Yeah.
Susan: Do you remember how it made you feel to see Renee and did you feel? How did you feel?
Grace: I felt hidden - I felt prevented. You know, I felt like I am like, I couldn't tell my parents. Oh, yeah, that's me.
Susan: What would have happened? Do you think if you would have shared some of the thoughts and feelings that you had with your family,
Grace: I probably would get my ass kicked? Right? And that's not a good thing. And yeah, I grew up with a lot of fear. Because I knew I was different. And so, you know, in an attempt to fit in, became a musician. You know, when you're a good musician, and a good singer, people treat you different. And, you know, by the time MTV came on the airwaves when I was in high school musicians were expected to be a little weird. And so I could, I could blur lines a little bit, you know? I I shop for really cool stage outfits that women's stores because they were the only place you could get really cool, colorful stuff, for sure.
Susan: So tell us about your band. I know you've been a part of a band for the last 30 years.
Grace: Oh, the one I'm in now. The Rude Band. In 1991, the Rude Band started off as Max Boogie and the Rude Awakening. Now, Max Boogie was a morning radio show DJ on 97.3 KPAT. And I was the last person to join the band. And I'm the last person in the band. I'm the last original member.
Susan: So tell us about your journey with with music as far as going through, you know, transition, and how did band members react? How has your voice changed?
Grace: Unfortunately, my voice change has nothing to do with my transition, which is a completely different story, which I will get into, but I got a lot of support from them. I came out to most of them in by the middle of 2020. The last and that includes the three people on our crew. And two of the band members, the last band member didn't live in Sioux Falls, so I didn't see him as often. You know, we were in the middle of the COVID pandemic, so we weren't playing very often either. So I finally got the chance to tell the last member of the band and I'm expecting that he probably be supportive, like everyone else, and then he quit the band two days later - without notice just I'm done. Interesting. So I haven't seen him since. And we've had a few people come and go since then. I'm still looking for the best permanent fit. Yeah.
Jack: What's it like to have an experience like that, where you come out to someone and they are just gone from your life?
Grace: It was hard. Any you know, I'm always braced for it. When I tell somebody that doesn't know. And have to tell them the story from scratch. This wasn't a person I sent a letter to show their the rejection was kind of harsh. But he didn't spend any time trolling me over it or anything. It just it's like he took a sharp knife and just cover attachments completely. So it's all there was a lot of stuff.
Jack: Have you faced that with any family members or any close friends.
Grace: Um I haven't faced it, but my wife has. Um, she has some people that she's been friends with since her college days at SDSU. And while they're all still in touch with her, everything kind of changed when they were told. You know, it's like, she feels like they're judging her for staying with me. I mean, even though Jill and I both understand that, there might come a point where Jill decides that she just can't do it anymore. You know, cuz it's no secret. I'm married to a straight woman. So, you know, there's, there's only so far you can push that. But you know, we have a lot of history. And we were friends for almost three or four years before we got married. And even before we dated, we knew each other pretty well. So, it wasn't like I came out to her and she's like, that's it on here. You know? I've always I've always been her person. And she's always been mine so but she's always had this support network of women that she You went to college with, and she feels a bit like she's been put on the back burner by a lot of these friends because the things that she can share with them before and not receive judgment, or you know, people trying to convince her that maybe this isn't the best thing for her. Um, she's she's really torn up.
Susan: How long have you been married?
Grace: Um, 27 years this week.
Jack: I think that is hard for spouses. If you're the one transitioning and your spouse, you know, they're struggling, you know, they need help. But it's really hard for you to be that person to help, right? Because you're, you're the one that kind of put them in this position, you know, so, you know, they, they really do have to try to find that support somewhere else. But it's difficult to watch the person you love struggling because of something that you have to do for yourself. Right.
Grace: Yeah, that's tough. I think that's probably an important reason why more people need to educate themselves on the transgender community. So they could be that support for someone like your wife that you need someone to just talk to. And you know, I think that and I spent a lot of time researching things like empathy. And I find it's really hard. To feel empathy, when I'm the one that caused the problem that they're unhappy. Because I transition to save my life. But in a lot of ways, you know, other people look at it, like I was just very selfish. And I wanted to try to avoid that, when I came out to people by telling them why I had to do it. You know, I mean think they'd rather have me alive than not right. So, right.
Susan: Yeah, could you tell us a little bit about what you mean by I had to transition to save my life because I do hear that quite often.
Grace: Leading up to my acceptance of who I was, is the fact that over Labor Day of 2019, I had an opportunity to take my life and I took it, and then apparently I'm not very good at it because it didn't work. I just come through well over two years of serious depression I used to be a consultant and I traveled all over the country but as my as my depression set in, I found it really hard for people to like me, because I was kind of a jerk. And I found it hard to get new assignments because people didn't want to hire me because I was a jerk. And I was unreliable. And there was a stretch of time where I didn't work for almost two years and you know, I'd sleep like 16 to 18 hours a day and hours that I was awake I just read Kindle books, and try and lose my mind is something else completely different. And I didn't take care of myself I have very unhealthy and I'm gonna just carry this aura of unhappiness around with me wherever I went. And it wasn't, you know? I couldn't pinpoint gender dysphoria as the problem. But as I've been through therapy, and trace all the problems I was having. It all came back to gender dysphoria. You know, I, I just I didn't accept it. it that I was transgender enough because I spent so many years just trying to run as fast as I could away from it. Because I just couldn't see myself on the other side of. So I got, I got increasingly worse, exponentially, so that summer before in 2019, and it culminated in that moment or Labor Day. And you know, something had to give you know, I was holding on to the identity that everyone thought I was, with the excuse of, I'm doing it, because they need me to be that person. Like, it'd be too hard for them too hard for them, or they wouldn't accept it. Or, you know, my kids who never recover from this, or you think about everyone, I think they're violent, except for myself, right. And that's why, you know, when you talk about people being selfish once you realize that you're hurting everyone, by not thinking of yourself. You start to realize all the damage you've done by not accepting who you are, because of worrying that nobody's going to accept who you are. So it was yeah, it was. It was either transition, or I could spiral a little more. And then maybe succeeded ending my life at a different time, but it wouldn't have ended, it wouldn't have ended well. So there were a lot of nervous days after I came out to my family. You know, Jill was shocked.
Susan: Because you had hidden this hidden, nobody would have had a clue?
Grace: So there were no no signs. No, nobody would have known that. Okay, yeah, I could kind of see that that was coming, or no, nobody saw it coming. Not a single person.
Susan: What makes you want to share your story.
Grace: I've always felt that if I could tell my story better. So that people can understand my story, and understand what I went through to get where I am. And where it feels like on the other side, that it would be helpful to offer people who might otherwise not be accepted - have their own niece or nephew or grandchild or their own kid, you know, or their, or their work-mate, or you name it, or their own spouse. You know, people need to know. You know, one of the first things that people were asking Jill when I first come out they were wondering if I was gay. I wasn't gay. I suppose I am now.
Susan: So tell us about what is life like now. Now that you've made that move to let everyone know who you are authentically? What is the life of Grace Hanson like nowadays?
Grace: Well, I go to work every day. Um, two days a week I got to teach gymnastics.
Susan: Tell us why you would teach gymnastics and how you got into that.
Grace: Seven years ago, my son who had been an avid tumbler in recreation classes decided he wanted to be a competitive gymnast. And there's only one club in all of South Dakota gymnastics and they're in Rapid City. We're in Sioux Falls, we're 400 miles away. So we checked out all the bigger gyms here and only found one gym that actually had the equipment for men's events. So we started paying for one on one coaching for him. And then we realized he was going to need to practice more. And he needed a coach that can be there for him you know, I, in the consulting end of things I had recently switched to some remote consulting. So I switched up my schedule a bit, and I became a coach. I didn't know anything about gymnastics. You know, so in the beginning, I just kept him focused on tasks. And told him when, you know, this event is down, we gotta move to next thing, you know, that kind of thing. And I learned, I went online, I took classes, I went to workshops. I traveled to Maryland, I traveled to Michigan, I traveled to Colorado to learn at workshops about how to be a coach. And my son graduated high school in the middle of COVID. And got on the Arizona State men's gymnastics team used ASU and lives in Chandler, Arizona. And he's on the team there. And he also coaches at the same gym where he trains and when he left for college you know, I'd already gotten involved in helping train some younger boys. Since I'm, I'm the only coach in eastern South Dakota that knows anything about Men's gymnastics. Even though I'm not a man, I'm the only one that knows the rules and the events. So you're the experts and the experts. So now I've got 7-8 Little boys between the ages of six and 11 that I teach, or coach gymnastics to Monday and Wednesday nights. And once any of them gets to the point of competing or moving up in level, so I'll probably have to add in a week or something else. I don't think I'll be going back to coaching 26 hours a week, like I was with my son. But we'll probably advance that, but that's how I ended up doing it. You know, for the first four years, I didn't get paid to coach but I coach a few of those kids in trade for my son being able to train there. You know, I provided all the coaching so it's not like we had to pay for a coach we just had to pay to use place. So you know, with that in mind, you know, I've only been a paid employee now for two and a half years. But I'm still the only only male gymnastics expert in our city. But it's nice. I get paid. I get to work with a bunch of little boys and see them improve. And it's fun.
Susan: That's amazing. Tell us about your other kids.
Grace: Well know, the gymnast, Micah is his fraternal twin brother. He plays in a band called Lila's Rose. He goes to USC and he's a Business Major with some kind of business analytics focus, whatever that means. And they're going into their junior college and then now we have two girls. One is adopted. By blood she is my second cousin. Her dad was my mom's first cousin. He passed away when she was 10. And she's now 34 and adopted three children of her own and fosters four others. She's 34 and single. She's a mental health worker over at Avera and just got her MSW and working on getting her into a practice license a couple of years worth of professional hours later she'll be able to practice on her own. And then we have another daughter, who came to us in the strangest way. She came to us as an exchange student in Junior High School from Bangladesh. Both her parents are still alive. But there were things going on in their home country that made it so she couldn't go home after her exchange here. So we got her enrolled in Sioux Falls Christian. She graduated high school there. And then we got her off to college, she spent a year at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, a couple of years at STS. And then a couple more years at Southern Florida, USF University of Southern Florida, in Tampa, and she's just finishing up her Master's Degree in Accounting and Finance and she is a Financial Consultant for Deloitte. Now, she turns 25. And on August 4, Cynthia turns 35 on September 15, and both boys turned 21 on December 12.
Susan: What a lovely family. Yeah. And what do they call you?
Grace: Pretty much "Grace" or "Asshole", depending on the day.
Susan: I love that. What would you want South Dakotans to know about transgender people and the issues that you may face.
Grace: Well, what I want them to know is that I live my life like everyone else. I have bills to pay. I have kids I need to take care of. I have college tuitions I need to pay. Um, I have friends and family. I do the same things they do every week. I go to church on Sunday. And the only difference between my life and their life is that even though I live as a woman I wasn't born that way. But you know, I'm not going to make him talk about it. I just want to be, I mean, isn't that really what anybody wants? You know, it's a it's a really that it's a really hard thing to be held out as something other than normal. You know, unless I'm in a position to talk about it. You know, when I meet people that didn't know me before. I never bring up the fact that I'm transgender. Ever. I wouldn't avoid the topic if they asked, but they have no reason to know I don't talk. I'll let them accept me as who they see me as. And it's perfectly fine with me. They don't need to know my story because they didn't know me before. You know, if they ever want to know my story, all they'd have to do is come and ask. But the only people who really need to know my story are the ones that you know, spent 53 years knowing the person that I was supposed to be and have to get comfortable with a person that I am now. And that's you know, it's not it's not that big of a leap right? You know, for those people who don't know, I'm transgender, they have no reason to know. You know, I'm lucky in that I don't have anything conflicting out there. You know, if I get pulled over for speeding, I don't have to give out a driver's license that doesn't have my name and my, my gender on it. That's correct. When I go to the airport, if I leave the country, my passport all matches everything that people would assume about me. You know, it's kind of weird I have, I have these two lives. I have the one where I'm an advocate. And there's a particular audience for my advocacy. You know, but when I'm out at Target, and just doing our shopping,
Susan: Do you spend 45 minutes getting everything that wasn't on the list?
Grace: Oh, I do a lot of that. But I'm an advocate, we're, it has its, its time in place, right. But for the rest of the time, I'm just living my life. You're just Grace. I'm just Grace. Um, one thing I want to circle back to that you asked about when we were talking about the band, and I mentioned that, you know, being a male to female transition, doesn't really affect your voice. But my voice has actually changed quite a bit. And I don't think so much in a good way. I mean, I know how to I know how to change my voice up. And I don't talk like I used to at all. But I have had some health problems that that got in the way of my voice. Developed gastro esophageal reflux. Okay, so I thought I got it fixed. But as it turns out, there's just enough still happening. It comes up my esophagus and gets into my sinuses, drips down through my vocal cords, and damaged one of them. And then goes right past that and gets into my lungs. So I've had some problems with breathing pulmonary issues and had some problems with continued damage to my vocal cords, which is why I'm so raspy. And we think we finally got a handle on it. In the last three or four weeks, I've been working with the Lions Voice Clinic at the University of Minnesota to try and troubleshoot that hole inside of me and what it's doing to my voice. And yeah, it's been, it's been a rough ride. I used to sing a lot better than I do right now. And you get to pick from some songs that are much better than I could. Because my voice is in the middle of a complete change up right now because it has to heal. There's some damage that needs to be fixed surgically, but they won't touch it until we get all of the reflux problems taken care of. And, you know, some days this is just how I'm gonna sound. And it's tough. But yeah, when you know, unfortunate thing is that estrogen can't make your vocal cords any thinner, smaller. Testosterone, on the other hand, can take it the other direction, because it makes them grow up. In my case, I always have a pretty high voice. But the reflux problems have kind of damaged it a little bit. I think I'll be able to recover but it's a lot more work than I really signed up for sure. My cadence and my pitch is more transition related. But it's hard to tell when my voice is so raspy. When you do publish this story, you could you could maybe provide the link to my coming out letter that we described so much such a great idea. I think people would like to like to read it if they're interested in that part of my story,
Jack: Because like you said the media portrays transgender people sometimes and just not a great way stories of positivity are very lacking. And like you said the story of why? Why did you feel like just one day you had to wake up and change who you are, you know, when people don't, but that's how people see it. You know? That's obviously not the way it actually goes. So that's why I think your story is super important.
Grace: Yeah. Well, I was glad to be here.
Susan: I think we're the lucky ones. Because we get to know you and get to, you know, get to know your story and who you are and learn from you and, you know, build empathy around the topic. I mean, it's, it's not every most of us will never have had the experience that you've had. So opening up to share that with us as is beautiful. Thank you so much for taking some time out of your day to spend with us. You can find out more about our organization at www.transformationorojectsd.org And on all the socials at SDtransformproj like PROJ if you have questions, thoughts or opinions or have someone in mind who may like to share their story with us, email us at podcast@transformationprojectsd.org. If this episode has been helpful to you in any way we hope that you'll share it with those in your circle
Jack: There are so many great resources available if you happen to be struggling with suicidal thoughts. You can head to the www.trevorproject.org. Or you can call and text 988 and you will be connected to trained counselors that will listen understand how your problems are affecting you provide support and connect you to the resources needed if necessary.
Susan: Thanks again for joining us we'll see you next week.
Check out The Rude Band here.
Grace's Articles on Medium:
How The Pyramid of Hate Applies to The Transgender Community
How I Started Transitioning Before I Came Out as Transgender
There are so many great resources available if you happen to be struggling with suicidal thoughts. You can head to the Trevorproject.org Or you can call and text 988 and you will be connected to trained counselors that will listen understand how your problems are affecting you provide support and connect you to the resources needed if necessary.
Hosts: Jack Fonder & Susan Williams
Producer: Susan Williams
Audio Engineer: Cheese
Graphic Design: Carly Schultz
Music: Niklas Peters
Niklas is a musician, artist, and organizer based in occupied Očhéthi Šakówiŋ land. They are a founding member of the South Dakota Women and Trans Musicians Network. When they are not creating music or art, Niklas can be found hiking or camping, walking their dog, or enjoying a meal with friends. They work as a Campaign Coordinator for Clean, Renewable Energy for the Western Organization of Resource Councils. (Website - Instagram)
