I want to preface this story by saying that the events that take place in this blog entry start more than 35 years ago, so my memory might not be exact on all of the dates. I'm going to try to get as close as I possibly can.
In 1976, while in the Navy, I was transferred to the naval support activity base in Algiers Louisiana. I was a member of the Navy Steel Band. This steel band had come into existence after world war II when the natives on the island of Trinidad started making musical instruments out of 55 gallon oil drums left over from the war.
Admiral Elmo Zumwalt had heard this music and decided he would like the musicians in the Navy Band in Puerto Rico to put a group together. Eventually the Navy Steel Band was transferred to Algiers.
While stationed there, I discovered the French quarter. In the French quarter, I discovered a bar called the Bourbon Pub. It was the first gay bar I had ever been to. I met a bartender named Ben who I became friends with. This would have been late summer of 1976.
For Halloween, my friend Ben, decided to put me in drag. We went out to several parties that night and most people thought Ben had brought a fag hag with him. Fag hag was an affectionate name for biological women who hung around with gay men. That night I was also introduced to someone who performed regularly in drag shows at a bar called the Post Office. We became friends and I was encouraged to try my hand at doing drag. I had always loved performing and once I started doing drag, I had a ball.
Getting to dress up as a woman felt so right. However, I discovered at the very beginning of my drag career, that drag was an art form. I could wear very light makeup and easily look like a biological woman. But I reveled in the art form of drag. I loved the theatrical makeup and over the top gowns. Lipsyncing, which I had a real talent for, made me feel like I was the actual performer I was imitating. The performance aspect was just so much fun. In those days I was known as Rita Merrill.
It was while I was doing drag shows, that I met my first trans woman. Her name was Samantha and she made her living working the streets. In soft lighting, she was beautiful. In the bright light of day, it was obvious that she was male. This was my first experience of seeing what so many trans women go through, because no one will give them a job when they are presenting as their true female selves. We desperately need a trans inclusive ENDA now!
Man people acquainted with me know that I have Klinefelter's syndrome, being that my chromosome structure is XXY. It is one of the reasons that I have always been so feminine in appearance. At this point in time, I knew nothing about Klinefelter's. I barely knew what gay was and had just learned about transgender, or at that time what we referred to as transsexual. As time went on, through Samantha, I met other trans women, and I immediately identified with them. I had never felt comfortable trying to be a gay man.
It was at this time that I'd decided that I could no longer be in the Navy. I knew that I needed to be a woman and I knew the United States Navy would not willing allow me to continue to be part of their organization if I wanted to be a woman.
I went to the chief that was in charge of the Navy Steel Band that I was attached to and told him my situation. He passed this up the chain of command and very shortly thereafter I was contacted by two agents of NCIS, that is the naval criminal investigative service. My word was not good enough. They had to investigate me. They came to my apartment and took pictures of my drag clothes. Then they preceded to tear my apartment apart looking for pornography. It was their belief that anyone who was homosexual, must have been lots of nasty male on male pornography hid. I told them over and over that I did not have any, but still they continued to look until they felt they had looked in every nook and cranny of my small apartment. I felt extremely violated. I was being completely cooperative and I felt like there was no reason other than just pure meanness that they would do this to me.
Within a week, I had an audience with my commanding officer. He told me I was a disgrace to the Navy; he called me a fucking faggot and told me that he would make sure that I was dishonorably discharged. I told him I had done nothing dishonorable and had not been caught doing anything I wasn't supposed to and if he was going to try and give me a dishonorable discharge, I was going to get a lawyer and fight it. I was then told to get my faggot ass out of his office.
Three days later while I was at the band room, my discharge papers arrived telling me that I had to be off the base within an hour. I was being give a general, under honorable conditions, discharge. This was so important to me, because I would not be eligible for the GI Bill to go to college if I was dishonorably discharged. I said goodbye to my friends in the band, most of whom had been very supportive, packed the few things I had there and left the base for the last time. I went home and had a good two hour cry and went out that night, and for one of the few times in my life, got drunk!
I had no trouble finding work through a temporary agency as a female. In those days they did not ask for identification when you applied for work. My birth name had been Patrick Gipp. When I applied for work, I applied as Pat. That enabled me to cash my paychecks. It was tough making ends meet and as much as I loved doing my drag shows on the weekend, I knew that I had to go back to California to my mother's house and go to school to try to get some sort of job that would enable me to eventually pay for surgery. So I got on in the bus and went back to my mother's in Modesto California.
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