Hearing Dr. Petra Doan speaking at the Women’s March in Tallahassee was an enlightening experience. We always read about transgender issues and hear about their experiences on the news, but to actually hear from someone who has lived through this fight their whole life was a completely new perspective. Someone with a doctorate who has worked so hard in their personal and professional life to create equality for everyone is rare to find, but Dr. Petra Doan is exactly that person.
Doan was born biologically male, but that was never how she felt on the inside. Doan first realized that she was different when she was only four years old and playing dress up with a female cousin. Putting on a dress for the first time made Doan realize that this was how she always wanted to be. “This is so cool; this is how I always want to be. This is right,” Doan recollected on when she first realized. The year was 1959 and although she was so young, Doan knew that what she was experiencing was viewed as wrong, “it was unacceptable and I knew it. So, I shut it away inside”.
Despite these feelings inside of her, Doan continued to live as normal a life as she could: growing a beard, playing soccer, volunteering for the Peace Corps, marriage, two children, a doctorate and securing a tenured professorship – all as a biological man. After 42 years of not being who she truly was, Dr. Doan decided to begin her transition to female, “I waited until after I got tenure but it became impossible to hold back this feeling of who I was.” After a lifetime of hiding who she really was and debating about who she really wanted to be, Doan speculated on the different identities that people adopted: transgender vs crossdressing vs drag queens. All are different faces of the LGBTQ movement. “I really wasn’t sure who I was. I did a lot of reading about it and I thought that I could be a crossdresser but for me it wasn’t just ‘fun,’ the feeling about ‘this is me’ just got stronger.” So, the transition began. Transition is different for any transgender person and it is the process of changing your gender presentation to fit with who you feel you really are. “Transition is the moment you decide to present yourself to the world as the person you know yourself to be. For me transition was walking into the Bellamy building wearing a skirt and makeup,” Doan revealed.
Doan’s colleagues, although shocked, were not unsupportive of the real her. Like any other piece of gossip, whispers followed her in the halls and people would stare out of curiosity, but eventually the next scandal broke and Doan’s transition was old news. Finally living as who she truly was meant to be gave Doan a new sense of pride, but transgender issues are still extremely divisive even today. Politics aren’t the only thing hindering progress when it comes to LGBTQ rights. Social connotation of transgender issues can impede Doan’s life and those like her. Doan explained how when she drives up north to visit her parents in Pennsylvania, she cannot stop in North Caroline – it is illegal for her to use the female bathroom there. Although she feels safe in Tallahassee, when she drives through Georgia and South Carolina she is always extra careful, “If I’m out in public there then I modulate my voice and my presentation. I’m very careful not to provoke people.”
Despite her hardships, Doan looks to the future for hope. “I have to believe in the goodness of people,” Doan spoke of the current situation in which transgender rights are politically under attack, “that in 10 or 20 years this will all be a blip.” Doan hopes that the current popular attitude against transgender rights will not always be the sentiment. That people and politicians alike will be able to work past this hostility and opposition and create a different world in which other transgender people will find support and acceptance, “my hope is that the next generation – kids growing up trans now – will find a much more supportive environment for their gender.”