A few weeks ago, Largo City Manager Steve Stanton had never heard of the acronym LGBT (for lesbian/ gay/ bisexual/ transgendered). On Sunday, when he was spotted by a group of lesbian volleyballers on a beach in Gulfport, they broke into spontaneous applause.
It's been that kind of a week for Stanton. Prior to his brush with beachfront fame, he'd been talking with me in the Gulfport hangout Cahill's —- one in a long line of media encounters he'd been having or was about to have, from a Newsweek photo shoot at the Vinoy to appearances on Nightline and CNN with Paula Zahn. He'd been in the public eye for years as city manager, but had never experienced this kind of attention.
He didn't plan for it to happen this way. He had hoped, once he'd told a select few in Largo city government hat he was transitioning from male to female, that he could reveal the information according to a carefully calibrated plan, one that allowed time for policies to be adjusted and shock to die down. But that was not to be. The information about his transgender status was leaked to the St. Petersburg Times, the Times ran a story on its website, and before he'd even had a chance to tell his own son, he was all over the news. And when the Largo City Commission voted Tuesday to place him on administrative leave with intent to dismiss, he went from local notoriety to international cause celebre.
Stanton and I covered a range of topics during our interview. Stanton's lawyer, Karen Doering, senior counsel for the Southern regional office of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, was also present. The conversation was wide-ranging, touching on the events of the past two weeks but also going back to Stanton's childhood memories, and looking ahead to the broader implications of transgender rights. A slightly built man with candid blue eyes and blonde hair that's beginning to cover his ears, Stanton spoke forthrightly, suggesting the self-confidence that has marked his tenure as Largo's head honcho. He slouched into his barstool at times, though, his face squinching up with bemusement at his inadvertent fame. Audio from the interview will be available here later this week; the following is an edited transcript. A shorter version appeared in the March 7 print edition of Creative Loafing.
Neither Stanton nor Doering would confirm that they would be filing an appeal of the commission's decision. We discussed some of the legal ins and outs before I asked about a comment he'd made during the hearing on Feb. 27.
You said in the hearing that you wouldn't sue the city.
SS: Yeah, I certainly alluded to that — and I guess one of the things I certainly was not prepared for since the time of that meeting is the number of Largo residents who have called and expressed their disappointment and their anger [at the commission's decision]. All of a sudden in many ways this issue is no longer about Steve Stanton — I think there's a bigger issue that may be addressed as well.
What about the language in the city's employment policy, implemented in October of 2003 [that included language prohibiting discrimination in the workplace by any city employee on the basis of "gender identity or expression"]?
KD: In Florida it's not clear that it's a violation of law to ignore your own employment policies. [But] the fact that city has this policy, and they ignored it, may be evidence of their animus and their discriminatory bias. There are no explicit laws in the state of Florida or in federal laws that say you cannot discriminate based on sex orientation or gender identity, but there are ... claims that can be made under sex stereotyping or disability laws that do protect transgendered people — so employers are subject to potential legal liability for that kind of discrimination.
The appropriate thing to do in this situation would have been to complete the transition plan that the city was working on, provide the kind of educational trainings that the city had already begun, the mayor and human resources had already started. Then if there were employees who couldn't deal with it or who engaged in discriminatory behavior, what you do is you discipline the discriminating employee, you don't fire the person who makes other people uncomfortable.
Bottom line is, [the city] violated its own policy.
KD: Absolutely.
You went to the mayor in January. That was the first time she knew?
SS: Oh yeah, yeah. Mayor Gerard's reaction was anticipated but not taken for granted. She listened — it was a very emotional discussion on my part — and after two, maybe two and a half hours I completed my, um, discussion and said 'What do you think?' and she said "You didn't ever doubt that I would support you, did you?"
Had you told your wife at this point?
SS: Oh, yeah, yeah, I sure did.
That was how long before that?
SS: This thing started in our life almost 12 years ago.
You've been married... since 1990?
SS: Since 1990, yeah, yeah. The whole issue of transgendered people, you very much go through a spectrum of experiences, You don't really know where you're going to stop or continue to, until you go through that process. Certainly when we first started it, it was simply "I'm comfortable cross-dressing at times," but that really wasn't it at all, it was something substantially ... more profound than that.
Which you'd been aware of since you were a kid, right?
SS: Yeah, but I was in denial, no one thinks that they're going to change their gender...It's one of those things that you think is fixed until you learn otherwise. So after going through the Human Rights Ordinance [voted down in Largo in 2003] and seeing the number of people that came forward and the courage that they showed, as well as the clash of two worlds ... up until then I had always been able to keep my transgender world and my professional world separate but that experience told me that maybe I wasn't going to be able to do that in perpetuity. But more significantly it was just tiresome trying to live a life of two genders, and that began a very therapeutic intense conversation with a group of professionals that got me to the point where I am today.
So there were times throughout those 12 years when you tried cross-dressing in settings other than Largo?
SS: Oh absolutely, yeah.
Describe that.
SS: One of the things that has been probably the most distressful in this whole process is people focusing on the physical manifestation of dressing. Transsexualism has nothing to do with dressing. So I don't want to dwell on it a lot. But certainly after you get, at some point when you realize my gender is wrong, then the question becomes can I live life comfortably in another gender? Some people can't, for a number of reasons, some physical, some psychological. So before you start hormonal therapy you need to be pretty sure you want to start changing your body, and before you start considering gender reassignment, what the average person equates to sex change, before you start cutting into healthy flesh, you need to be absolutely sure that this is something that not only you want, but that you can do in the real world. We do that. We're required through the medical protocol to work very closely with our therapists and try to insure that the gender we relate to in fact is something we can live in some point in the future. And that took place over the last five or so years, absolutely.
So you started seeing a therapist after the debate over the HRO, or had you already...?
SS: Well I was thinking ... what really was the thing that was the most profound experience — I attended a pretty select class [Executive Leadership Institute for local and state executives in 2006] at Harvard.
That's what the shirt is about.
SS: Yeah — we talked about transformational leadership.
Transformational leadership takes on a whole other...
SS: Another connation ... but it talks about the whole issue of comfort zones, how we all get very comfortable in our personal and professional lives and we stop growing, and I realized that so much of my hesitation was not really the physical manifestation, the changes, as much as the loss of prestige that one inherits as a white male. It was almost a profound experience that if I'm gonna get where I'm gonna be, I'm gonna have to leave the safe world where I learned to hide and step out and start to live. Everybody in the class was challenged to do that in ways that was a very emotional experience for a group of 67 professionals from all over the world that culminated literally in people crying at the end of the class.
Have you heard from any of your classmates?
SS: Absolutely, yeah.
Did you talk about this issue there?
SS: I was called on the issue there
How were you called on it?
SS: The experience is a very introspective, reflective process, and at one point I said I can't participate, I cannot disclose very intimate details about who I am.
Oh, they must have jumped on that.
SS: Yeah, and there were a number of people in the class who were sponsored from the Victory Fund that supports openly gay and lesbian elected officials. We had a number of those folks and they kind of drug me off to the side.
And what did they do? They said, "OK, what is your secret? We're going to take a guess, and if that's your secret you better not keep it in the closet?"
SS: I haven't discussed this with many people. Yeah, we did — we talked about the courage it's going to take.
What was their question?
SS: Two or three different people in top positions in the country who had dealt with discrimination as gay elected officials gave me a lot of advice, but the issue of transgenderism is substantially different than that, and a lot of the experiences they had are not necessarily applicable to a transsexual at the same level in their respective careers.
So you were able to share with them, though, that you were transsexual — or transgender. Which term do you prefer, by the way?
SS: I like transgender, but it's very nondescript, but transsexual is how most people know it even though it has a negative connotation to it.
So you told them.
SS: Yeah, three of those people knew.
So then you had the discussion — and did you then come out to the entire group?
SS: No, this was not a group discussion.
So that was a major turning point for you. Had you started — you have started hormonal treatments, is that correct?
SS: Oh yeah, yeah.
How long have those been going on?
SS: Almost for about two years — year and a half, two years, in that area.
So, 2005.
SS: Yeah, yeah.
And, and, and you've — Here's the question...
SS: The question, I'm ready, go for it, the question.
...that comes with all of these folks who are using it as an excuse [to ask for his dismissal]: "Well he's deceived us, Why didn't he tell us this?"
SS: That is the 10-dollar question, because the whole aspect of deception is relevant not only to your job, it's relevant to your parents, it's relevant to your wife. What people don't understand is because this phenomena is so misunderstood and so stigmatized, that even the people that wake up as small children and know that there's something profoundly different [about] them have no healthy outlet to really express it, to come to terms with it, to understand it and to receive support in coming to terms with it. This is not something you tell somebody: "I'm a transsexual, don't tell anybody." Invariably because of the negative connotation it's something that's highly closeted, highly compartmentalized and absolutely protected. I conveyed in my letter to employees, I've taken extraordinary steps to make sure that nobody would ever know this including my parents and my family. They didn't know about this either.
You didn't tell your parents?
SS: I never told my parents. I told my dad 10 minutes prior to the news conference.
Good heavens.
SS: That's what he said.
About that news conference or about the revelation?
SS: About the revelation. I don't think it's still sunk in. It's not a matter of deception, it's a matter of helplessness, because you just don't know.
Especially for someone in your position.
SS: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I was worried about this type of outcome, but I was also absolutely confident that Largo is in fact a City of Progress, and if the transition plan that we developed had been implemented Largo had the capacity to embrace the diversity. I absolutely believe that. And I think the recent poll in the Pinellas County area which included Largo absolutely confirmed that to me, absolutely, without a doubt.
Do you have any resentment toward the Times for letting this out of the bag?
SS: No, I mean, the Times reported the news, they don't make news. They acted very responsibly, I think.
So two years in hormone treatment and that resulted in some changes in your body... Did anybody remark on this?
SS: Yeah, everybody was wondering, are you ok?
Because it was a weight loss result for you.
SS: Weight loss — and some parts of your body get smaller, and some get larger. Your complexion changes, your skin tonation changes, your emotions change. Men have the ability to decide to be emotional. Once your body chemistry changes, you don't. And people would often comment about that.
Really? Can you describe the difference between Steve Stanton the man and Steve the transitioning woman, in terms of emotions?
SS: Yeah. Probably the biggest thing as a city manager is I'm an extremely passionate person. But when you go through this process you become a whole lot more sensitive to others' feelings. I used to be known for saying, "It can't be that complicated, get it done." Well, after I had a chemical change, I perceived the impact that I was having on people, where in the past it just wasn't important. So those were the things I think most people felt that, "God what's going on with him, he seems so much more..."
So he's nicer now?
SS: "More patient, more empathetic, more responsive to our needs as a staff" than maybe I was in the past. I'm told I could be pretty insensitive and uncaring at times. I didn't believe it, but that's what I was told.
Well, that's funny, because one of the things I had heard was that the commissioners who took it upon themselves to get rid of you had been burned in the past, and were just glad to get rid of you — and if you've been changing in the last couple of years, are they just shooting themselves in the foot? I mean, did you burn some of these people, is that why they're coming after you, it has nothing to do with your gender change at all?
SS: It's interesting, the e-mails I'm getting from people — it's time for "justice," I think. During my 12 years in the city there have probably been 100 or so people that ... I've been substantially involved in their being promoted outside the organization, and we sometimes had conversations regarding, "If you can't do the job I'll do the job, but then I don't need you." This is a high-performing organization. We're not gonna play the game that a lot of governments do that you can't fight city hall and you can't fire a bureaucrat. We just never played those games in Largo, so if you couldn't do the job you weren't gonna stick around. And if supervisors didn't want to make sure people did their jobs, then they and the employee left the organization. So I've actually received a number of emails that have been reflective of people's certain amount of satisfaction that from their perspective, what went around, came around and hahaha. But that's part of the game of being a city manager...
Well, then, that was working. So conversely don't we ask, if he's softening up, maybe he won't be as good?
SS: No, I don't think...
Just playing devil's advocate here, but the other part of this is, it kind of reinforces gender stereotypes what you've just said. I don't know, if I were a woman I'd feel, "Oh, I'm not tough enough, I mean I'm a woman, my hormones change and I'm not as mean?"
SS: I don't think it ever got to the level with the commissioners where they said Steve's gone soft. If anything...
No, I hadn't heard that either, but you're describing a transition into a different kind of manager which has to do with your hormonal change.
SS: I think I was more empathetic, I could become a better manager. People in fact said, "Jeez, you've been so good to work with." I used to be known for The Stantonization Process: the phone call on Monday morning. And people for a while, they'd dread getting the phone call on Monday morning from the city manager. Instead of making the phone call the better option was to go to their office, sit down, communicate your concerns and that started to change a lot of people's experience of me during the past year. I guess the two people that saw that the most were the police chief and the fire chief because they tend to be more focused as masculine alpha males.
And you were sort of a guy's guy according to some reports? Or at least you did a good job of seeming to be?
SS: Yeah, well, I've always been a wannabe firefighter and a wannabe cop and I've always had fun in both of those worlds and both of those individuals came over and said "What's going on with you? You've got to talk to us."
When did they do that?
SS: About a year ago. They started coming in and closing the door: "Talk to us."
And you told them then?
SS: Eventually. It took a while before I wanted to burden them with the secret. And it is a burden.
The mayor wasn't the first person you told?
SS: No, the first person I told in the city organization was the city attorney. After that it was the fire chief, the police chief, the human resource director.
And they were all supportive. And that was one of the things that was so striking about the media coverage [at first]... it did feel like you were going to have a pretty good ride in the beginning.
SS: Yeah, it did, and I'm absolutely convinced that the direction that the commission took was profoundly impacted by two or three different churches that really conveyed ... moral outrage that anybody could change the image of man that God had perfected — as I understand it. And the e-mails that we got, the nasty phone calls that we received, and all the hate that was conveyed to us ... very much impacted the political system to the extent that by the time Tuesday came, not only had commissioners deliberated extensively, but they'd already prepared their statements prior to the meeting. So it was unfortunate but highly predictable. We talked about that with my transition plan, that it takes about two weeks. When you tell somebody that you're transsexual, that has a profound impact on who they feel they were talking to — that whole sense of... understanding. And that's a clinical response, that first I'm angry that I've been quote unquote deceived. That is the first clinical step when someone tells you something like this. The next step is ... understanding and almost empathy, and that was the most important part of the second aspect of our transition plan, getting people in that could say, this is what it is, this is what it's not, this is why people say what they are, this is why they retain it. And that never took place. It never took place.
It stopped at anger.
SS: It stopped at anger, deception and dishonesty, yeah.
Did the police chief and the fire chief go through that same period of initial anger?
SS: No, I think if anything because ... they're occupationally trained to deal with confidential medical information, there's not a whole lot you can tell someone in the public safety field. After a while we get real acclimated to things that you don't —
They can't be surprised easily.
SS: We're not surprised, with the stuff that you see. No, they didn't have that feeling. Initially the human resources director did.
Really?
SS: She had the deer-in-the-headlight look without a doubt ... but she worked through it as well. When all was said and done, she said, "I'm a professional, let's see if we can get past this thing, let's roll, let's do it."
And it's nothing if not a human resources problem. And it's right on her desk, right?
SS: I forgot — I guess the National League of Cities called me the other day, and we had submitted [an application for a] diversity award program — and they were concerned given the fact that we had submitted this application and the city had done ... this, this thing
Wait, wait back up. You just submitted for an award for diversity support in the city? When was that submitted?
SS: A couple of months ago, I guess.
And they were calling saying, "Let me tell you what we got a problem about here."
SS: Yeah, and I discussed that, that the organization has done a lot about accommodating diversity, and we as a city have a pretty good track record in this area. We are hopefully going to get the award because of our past practice and the things that we had done as a city organization. I guess I would submit that a lot of the problems we had were not a direct result of the organizational dynamics as much as the political system was hijacked by a bunch of religious people that inserted its beliefs and distorted the decision-making of the city, and a very emotional public hearing.
KD: It can come across that they speak on behalf of all people of faith. There are many, many people of faith who do not agree with the position that was put forth by this small group of very conservative Christian folk, and they're absolutely entitled to their own views and their own beliefs. This is not about changing anybody's belief system. All this is about is ... you just have to handle yourself in a professional manner in the workplace. You can believe and feel and think whatever you want... but it's about behavior, not about beliefs, and this particular group has a certain belief system. But they do not speak on behalf of the entire Christian faith community, and I think what we've seen is a spontaneous groundswell from other faith communities.
SS: And I've just been inundated with calls from religious leaders. They've been calling the house, and sending flowers, and food — it's just been something I never anticipated happening.
What do you say to that reaction, "Well, Jesus would have fired you," which is one of those guys' claims?
SS: I went to church, it was an empty church, I had a very intimate one-on-one conversation with my God. And it was "OK, Lord, I've done everything I was supposed to do, I've got 17 years invested. You tell me I'll walk through the gates of hell, and I'm goin', but I hope you know what you're doin' because I am so scared and I'm extremely spiritual, I'm not a sinner and I don't deserve to be condemned." I know it to be so because I've had that conversation with God. I don't know how to respond to people who've had an alternate conversation, I guess that's between them and their god. I don't know, I just don't know. I was surprised.
What about Commissioner Guyette complaining that you had attended the same conference as he did and were dressing as a woman without telling him?
SS: I think it's important to understand the medical protocol that a transsexual goes through when you're contemplating such a profound change of who you are. It was a supervised medical process to insure that you can interact on every aspect of who you're gonna be and what you're gonna be. In that situation, I think it was a Saturday, I interacted as Susan in the outside world in a way that was not disruptive. I registered with a different name, it was not under the name of the City of Largo, and I interacted very well to such an extent that nobody knew I was anything other than what I presented myself to be. Which is what you have to be able to do if you're going to be successful in this transition. It is required in order to do the gender reassignment, it was a medically prescribed process that was done in the consultation of two of my doctors, it was entirely appropriate and nothing was wrong with that. Now if you have the feeling that someone was running around in drag and embarrassing the city, I guess you probably would react as Commissioner Guyette might have, but again I think it's a lack of information, and responding from that emotional visceral point in your belly, and [not] based upon education and having an understanding of what the medical protocol is and why it's there. If anything I wanted to make sure I was just a faceless person in the crowd, that it was not disruptive, and the fact that nobody knew was in fact precisely what the medical protocol was designed to do.
You did attend a seminar with Guyette?
SS: I have no idea — there were three, four thousand people there.
You knew he was there.
SS: There were many people there that I knew.
Weren't you really — scared?
SS: Not at all, not at all.
No? I mean that was really risky wasn't it? What if somebody said, "Steve's over there and he's dressed like a woman. What's up with that?"
SS: Because, because, if you're very comfortable in your gender you have a presentation that does not look male.
So you were essentially a different person and you were occupying that person's flesh — it didn't feel like you were pretending.
SS: Exactly — it's not pretending, it's not dressing up, it's expressing who you are. If anything, I've been cross-dressing as a man the last 47 years. So I think there was more honesty in that presentation than in this presentation.
But it is tricky, it is something you have to be very careful about. Had you been doing this enough so that it wasn't as scary?
SS: That was asked at the news conference. Have you dressed on city business? When I heard that question, sitting there with all the lights: Did I ever come into a meeting at City Hall? Did I ever go to a meeting in another community as Steve in something other than professional male attire? No, of course not. A conference even though it's quote unquote city business, I think it's a different context of being out of town with a group of 3,000 people as opposed to walking into a room and then you are inserting a substantial amount of disruption and disunity into the work environment, and that is irresponsible. It's something I never did, and it's something I never would have done.
Let's look at the happy ending you said (in one interview) you were naively hoping for — and it still could happen. There will be a point, right, as part of this medically supervised transition and after talking to everyone in city hall, you will be coming to work dressed as a woman, correct? And won't that have to happen on a regular weekly basis prior to the reassignment?
SS: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. The other day one of the directors said to me... "Steve, I don't want to offend you, but I guess I saw you coming to work in a dress Aunt Bea was wearing. Your hair was all fluffy like Aunt Bea's."
He was imagining this?
SS: Yeah, and he said, "You had these goofy huge earrings on, and you wore these great big white pumps."
This was a dream he had?
SS: Yeah. It's just the things people think when they think of a guy coming to work dressed as a woman.
Somebody you worked with.
SS: Oh absolutely, a good friend. And they were being very honest with me, with their fears and trepidations. I said, "I would think your reactions would be extremely appropriate, and it probably looks stupid in your dream as well. So I'm not comin' to work lookin' like Aunt Bea, and I'm not going to dress in drag.
KD: Steve is a conservative, professional, deliberative person.
Aunt Bea's conservative...
KD: Susan's going to be a conservative, professional, deliberative person. The person of Susan is the same as the person of Steve. He has not undergone a personality transplant, that he's going to dress in flamboyant clothing, have big old gaudy earrings, look like Aunt Bea.
Well, what is your personal style as a woman?
SS: Same as a guy. It's very conservative.
What kind of clothes, hairstyle? Have you imagined this?
SS: Well, absolutely. One of the things I was predicating that quote unquote transition plan is I want to have my own hair. So it was something as basic as that. I need to have my hair grow. As a guy I got a haircut every other week, sometimes every week. So I've had to let it grow, I don't want to grow make-believe hair. That was going to take time just to let my hair grow. I would be wearing the same kind of business suits I do as a guy, only more feminine, and as a woman, but it would not be looking like the Aunt Bea people had envisioned in their dreams, which again is a very humanistic, understandable fear. During the meetings a couple of times, I was joking with the cops. We were joking about these whole aspects of me coming to work as a woman, and they were trying to understand what that meant. So they were asking good questions, "If you get past this, do you still want to come out with us?"
The cops were asking you that?
SS: Absolutely. You know, are you still going to want to train with the SWAT team? Well, why would I not want to train with the SWAT team?
The cover of Creative Loafing this week is going to be the Largo city seal with WRONG across it in rainbow-colored letters. How do you respond to that?
SS: The City of Largo is a city of progress, and I've said...
I'm not saying that's wrong, I'm saying the city of Largo made a mistake—
SS: They made a mistake, they made a mistake—
And they're wrong about it, and they should fix it.
SS: I'm hopin' that they will. I'm realistic, it may be too late for them to go back and undo what time has done, but certainly as media continues to expand and I become more of a public figure that may or may not be possible. My first love is being manager of an organization I've devoted 17 years to and I believe it's possible. It's not going to be easy. I indicated in my letter to employees that the transition is going to be awkward, and it was going to require a tremendous amount of sensitivity and flexibility and I suspect a certain degree of good humor on my part.
On everybody's.
SS: Moreso me. When you do as much training with as many employees as I do, if you can't laugh at yourself at the potential absurdity of these kind of changes...then you oughta stay home. You oughta stay home.
Tell me about your job. What would be a typical day for you as a city manager?
SS: I had the best job in the city, and I still have the best job in the city. I've not been fired yet. I was always known for getting out and about. The week prior to this thing blowing up I was working on a street crew — um, digging out a median — so that a fire truck I was on six weeks ago could make the turn easier. Because I listened to everybody in the back of the truck whine about the fact that they couldn't go over the median, so I said, "I can do that." And someone said, "It's not as easy as you think it is, boss." "Well, tell you what — put me on the work site, let me see how complicated this can be." Sure enough, it was more complicated than I thought.
KD: But you got it fixed, didn't you?
SS: Well, I was out there with the axe and shovel...
How's it been with your family?
SS: My family's been outstanding, just amazing. We were under stress, knowing that this disclosure was coming in April — actually the end of May.
This was part of the eight-page plan [that you and the mayor devised for the transition].
SS: My wife and I started a plan 24 months ago.
Really? Is that part of the process with a couple?
SS: It's part of the process of making sure that your wife doesn't kill you at the time you discuss all this. She had to go back to get some good education to get a new career because we both knew that... if this thing went real poor I could be unemployable, which is a fate that often happens to transsexuals once they come out and tell their employer. So she had to generate a good income.
What does she do?
SS: She takes ultrasounds of people's hearts. So it's taken a lot of time and energy — she's an extremely brilliant, passionate, exciting, devoted person. The last six months is when she went out and started doing her clinicals before she was licensed, and the last six months was then my responsibility to start preparing my world in the same way she was hers, and everything was working well until a reporter came into my office and said, "Can we talk? We got word that you're getting ready to make a big announcement about your change in gender." And all I could think of was, "Houston, we've got a problem. We have got a problem."
And it would have happened in May. The commissioners would have known by then?
SS: We were trying to give them a week, possibly two. You don't tell people you're a transsexual and expect that they're not going to tell somebody else. And when you tell commissioners ... and hope that you're going to keep this secret contained ... [That] was something we never came to terms with — we assumed we'd do the best we could — it was always the weak spot in the plan. Once you tell the elected officials, could they keep the confidence and/or would they feel compelled to ... disclose it to the general community because [they] have concerns about your mental stability if you're going to be doing this — that was always a concern as well, how would they react, because unfortunately we'd had to give the test prior to the lesson, and you typically don't want to do that in life.
And they haven't done too well on the test, have they?
SS: Each one of these people are my personal friends — we have all been thrust in this situation. I'm still naïve enough to believe they can do the right thing. I'm hopin'.
Have you talked to them since the hearing?
SS: Actually, there was some discussion about getting together for a dinner with me and my wife.
Who was that?
SS: I won't — these are people that are friends with one another, it's like, well, it's not personal.
Let's all sit around, have dinner.
KD: I threw you under the bus, but I still like ya.
SS: It's nothing personal, business is business, let's get on with life here. But these are personal friends.
Like you have had dinner with them.
SS: I've been in their homes, I know their kids, I know what their dogs' name is for heaven's sakes — we're a very close community, and if I didn't think that the city had the ability to right a wrong, I'd do like many a city manager would, I'd put down my weapon and go find another battle to fight, but I've got 17 years in this city. It is the city of progress, the outpouring of support is consistent with my belief that I know Largo is a great community.
It must have been tough during that whole Human Rights Ordinance controversy. Were you feeling any amount of guilt that you couldn't come out and say, "I know what you're talking about from personal experience?"
SS: No, it wasn't guilt. It was shame. I had an employee come into my office. My office is a beautiful office. I have a nice $7,000 table that whenever anyone puts a coffee cup on it I convey to them it's a $7,000 table, they need to use a coaster. So coming into this very nice office with this very big expensive table is very intimidating. So this employee came into my office and was shaking, shaking. She said, "Can I talk to you, Mr. Stanton?" She sat down at this $7,000 big table in this beautiful office — going to speak to the city manager is the equivalent of going to speak to the principal in high schoool, I guess, and she was literally shaking in her chair. And she said, "Do you mind, and will I get fired, if I go to the meeting tonight to tell the commission that I'm not evil, even though I'm gay I'm not a bad person, I just want to let them know I mow my lawn, I pay my taxes, I come to work every day and I'm a good person. Will I be fired if I tell them that?" Knowing, watching this person, sitting, shaking, how much courage it took to come in my office, how much it took for her to do that, and there I sat hiding behind the business suit, hoping that this person wouldn't judge me the way that people have judged me today, as deceptive and [cowardly], by those people who screamed, "Jesus would fire him, and you should too!"
What did you say to this person?
SS: I said, "Of course not." You definitely need to feel comfortable communicating that info to the commission, and you have our support, and your job is not in danger. Whatever I can do to support you. And she's still with us, one of our best productive employees. Despite her sexual orientation, she's a good wholesome God-fearing loving person.
Maybe because of her sexual orientation.
SS: Probably irrespective of her sexual orientation — it wasn't relevant.
Maybe because of her ability to be open about it. Isn't that one of the arguments you're making, that you're going to be a better city manager once you're fully yourself?
SS; Again I analogize with having a real expensive car that's only operating on four out of the eight cylinders. If I can get the entire engine all working in the same direction, I think this car can be a better car, a high-performing car, and ultimately a better city manager. I believed it, I still believe it, I'm confident city commission will do the right thing, and if not life has other plans.
Are you going to stay married?
SS: It's a real personal issue. I love my wife dearly, she's been a real trouper through all this. As I've stated, this is a wife's worst nightmare. That's a very personal question, we both love each other dearly, no matter what our marital status is anytime in the future, we're still going to be a mom and a dad to a real exciting, energized little boy and we're going to be partners in life, irrespective of what the status of our marriage may or may not be.
Can I ask you another personal question?
SS: You can ask me anything you want. You're not going to ask a bra size like somebody else did?
I already heard that — B, right?
KD: I can't believe you answered it.
SS: Yeah, I did, I don't mind answering personal questions, but come on.
KD: The attorney and client have the same bra size, all right?
This question comes partly from the fact that I'm a gay man myself.
SS: I did not know that. You seem like a nice person.
Oh thank you. In spite of all that. Thank you. And they let me keep my job, amazingly enough.
KD: Creative Loafing, the paper of progress.
Exactly. I think ... a lot of people in the LGBT community have questions about the T...
SS: You know, I didn't even know what the LGB...P community was...
Until...
SS: Until I walked into [Karen's] office and her secretary said, "We do the L...BTG people," and I said, "Who are those people?"
Do you know they've added I and Q now? I didn't realize the I. The Q I knew, but I didn't know the I.
KD: And some people say IQQ — it's intersex, questioning and queer.
SS: Well I'm just getting used to the LG and the...
KD: BT.
SS: ...BT thing.
Well, one of the assumptions both among straight and "G" people is that someone who's transgender is actually gay, and among some gay people it's... "Transgenders are buckling under, why don't they just come out, live as a gay man and avoid all this surgical stuff?"
SS: Yeah, I've heard that transsexuals are gay men in denial.
Right, so that the question is, are you sexually attracted to men, or to women, or haven't you decided yet?
SS: You know, I wish I was. I mean, it takes a real man to become a woman.
I've heard that line somewhere.
SS: Gosh, I mean when someone is putting a needle in your face and squeezing electricity through it [for electrolysis treatments] and... If it was just a matter of me saying I'm gay, let's get on with with life — oh, that would have been so easy. I suspect if I had stood up in the news conference and said I was gay, nobody would have given a darn. I wish I was gay. It would have been so much easier. If it were so, I wish, but no, I wish it were that easy.
So the more likely scenario — if you don't remain married to your wife, who is heterosexual — would be a lesbian relationship?
SS: Yeah, this is always a fascinating conversation because people do seem to relate sexuality and sexual orientation with gender expressions, and I've introspectively reflected on this in both an academic and a personal way, and decided I have no idea. That is as irrelevant to me as the surgery. People keep saying to me, "When are you going to have the surgery?" I have no idea. It's irrelevant. Who cares?
It's not on a schedule or something? I mean, you have this planned, right?
SS: It's about a year but I'm not fixated about it. Some transsexuals get the surgery, some don't.
So it's not a given that you would.
SS; Nothing's a given. Yeah, I want to, but will I do it or not? I don't know. Will I be married to a guy someday or a girl? Jeez, I don't know. At this point, I'm just trying to pick up the pieces and move forward. And sometimes it's best not to answer all the questions because you don't know what the questions are. And God knows, only He knows the answers. He hasn't revealed all that to me, but in due time I'm confident that He will let me know.
Do you belong to a church in the area? Or did you?
SS: You know... the one area I'm very protective of... is my faith. I don't talk about where I go to church because as soon as I do that there's going to be camera crews showing up one day. I try not to discuss that. My faith was extremely relevant in order to stand up before all those cameras and all those photographers and talk about such a personal intimate topic. Where I go is something that's extremely private —— it's the only question where I've said, I'm not going to tell you where I go and what I believe. I have a close relationship with my god.
Can I ask whether anyone at your church, your pastor has reached out to you and given you support?
SS: I've got a close relationship with my god.
May I say I really hope it wasn't one of those churches that was at the hearing?
SS: What I've also not done is focus on who spilled the beans, cause that stuff will just eat you up. I'm sure there was a reason for it to be done now and not later. One of the things, I was just shocked, Karen knows I've had a lot of tears with her over this thing, I didn't realize there was so many people out in this [LGBT] community. I didn't realize there were organizations that Karen's a part of, and people in Washington that are now focused, and the e-mails, I just did not know.
You're suddenly getting support from all over the place, is that right?
SS: Oh, yeah, and in ways — I don't know if I'm worthy to be part of this, I'm just trying to be me, Lord, if you tell me I can do this, I will. All these interviews, OK, I'm just a city manager trying to get along here, and all of a sudden they want me to talk on Nightline and all these newspaper magazines and all I'm trying to do is just be me.
KD: That's one of many, many media requests. [My office is] now scheduling all media requests and interviews. I think because city manager is a high-profile professional manager, I think the fact that Steve has been so good at his job —
Excellent reviews, pay raise.
KD: Just recently a big pay raise — you know, you don't give somebody a $10,000 pay raise if they're not doing a good job, and any city manager that has no conflict whatsoever with anybody is not doing their job. So sure, some people don't like him, some do like him, but he has moved the city of Largo forward — it's just remarkable. I deal with city management all over the country... and without question the City of Largo is one of the most professional in the country. The irony of all this is just unbelievable — but to Steve's credit it is not the professionals who he supervised that have had the problems, it's the elected officials. And again even the elected officials have acted very humanly, as absolutely would be anticipated when you hear this kind of secret without the appropriate preparation — and the management team had prepared for this and would have educated them in advance.
Even Mary Black?
KD: You know, even with education, some people choose to take a position based on their belief system.
[She's not] using it as a political launching pad?
KD: Well, it worked for Ronda Storms. I don't know, maybe it'll work for Mary Black.
Do you think that's a fair assessment, though?
SS: You know, Mary's a very principled person — one thing I'll give Commissioner Black credit for, she's been the most consistent on this issue.
True.
SS: Because initially when I talked to each of the commissioners individually they were supportive, embracing.
When was that?
SS: That day prior to the news conference.
The time frame of the revelation again?
SS: Lorri Helfand, of the St. Petersburg Times, came to me on a Tuesday. I after a while said, "Let me call your editors up." They said we'll give you a day, we'll give you 24 hours, we'll run the story on Thursday, as long as you meet with our reporter on Wednesday. Of course after the reporter did her thing I needed to talk with city staff. I started doing that, then the Times was concerned after I started talking to department directors—
That they'd lose the story.
SS: They would lose the story, so they put it on the Internet around 3 in the afternoon, and within a half hour our entire parking lot was full of trucks with great big sticks in the sky.
The Times didn't warn you it was going to be on tampabay.com before it went up? How did you find out?
SS: The camera trucks started coming into the parking lot.
That's what tipped you off?
SS: We don't miss a thing here in Largo. We looked out that window and said, "Oh God..." I think someone in the communications and marketing department knew they were going to put this on the Web.
So they didn't live up to their end of the bargain?
SS: Well no, they didn't, but I don't blame them, you just don't tell someone you're transsexual and expect that information to stay. Other than disclosing the story, I think the Times has done a pretty good job of trying to cover the issue. In the Clearwater office, when I went to talk to [the managing editor] he must have had five or six people apologetic for the Tampa Bay whatever it is.
tbt*.
SS: The "A Boy Named Sue" headline. When I first saw that, I thought it was cute myself — 'cause when I was a kid I used to think the boy named Susan was [me].
Had you already picked out the name "Susan"?
SS: No, my mom told me at a very early age. When the song came out, there was an identification with that song — and all of a sudden there's my picture and "A Boy Named Sue." I giggled at it at first — but everybody else conveyed how upset they were — and it was done in a disparaging, denigrating way, and it got like, my sense of humor is not appropriate in this situation.
There are a couple of questions you had raised in the WMNF interview, like, What do we call you? And what restrooms do you use?
SS: Yeah, at this point it's ... because I haven't externally, even though ... let's leave it there. To the city, that was a concern, and they asked me, because of the sensitivity, don't use the men's room no more, and don't use the men's locker room. So what we did is took bathrooms that were girl on one side and boy on the other side and just made them unisex — that's what a lot of companies do. It's just not a problem.
KD: And as far as pronoun usage ... right now he is presenting and dressing as Steve, so the appropriate pronoun is the male pronoun he. When he begins dressing full time 24/7 as Susan, then the appropriate pronoun will be she. Before the City Commission did what it did, he was going to being living as Susan on April 2. So again right now I think it's still in flux when Steve is going to begin living as Susan.
I have to tell you, we did a couple of trainings on Tuesday before the City Commission meeting — they invited us to do some trainings for city employees ... and it was great, we had a whole spectrum of folks, we had people who were 150 percent behind their city manager ... to others who were, this is somebody I work with every day, I relate to him as a guy, I share things with him, and I relate to guys differently than I relate to women. So when I said when Steve becomes Susan it's still the same person inside, the response was, "No, I don't believe you. But I'm a professional ... and we'll have to work out what the personal friendship thing is, but I know that this is a workplace and I know how to be professional and I will absolutely do that." And that is the classic example of when education is done right, transitions in the workplace can work out. So that's somebody who personally was still going through that process of figuring out for himself what this all meant. This is somebody who I'm guessing was a personal friend of Steve Stanton who's saying I don't know how to relate now to Susan Stanton. And that's real human.
In some ways you are different.
SS: Oh, absolutely. And when you talk about people changing, we're all born with a core set of values that does not change, our likes our dislikes, how we hold ourselves out as human beings does not change. That week — a prior week — I was out with our fire guys — we were literally on the top of the Tropicana dome, on the C ring, we were rappelling off this thing, and it's 300 feet down to the ground, and someone tells me after I've gone up and down the line, why don't you bring up the rope and we'll get it set for somebody? Oh, OK, so I start walking and I start pulling this rope up — and I can't pull the rope up. I can get it six inches at a clip, but I don't have that physical strength anymore. So in that situation people would have to relate to me differently. The need for interacting with the highly skilled people in our department is not going to change, but you have to understand I can't do like I used to because I don't have the physicality that I did before. So in that sense it's changed, but my values will not change and that's something that people have to come to terms with, which is logical and understandable.
But there's also a certain amount of loss you have to come to terms with yourself, of the things that you used to be able to do. Is that something that you think about sometimes?
SS: I don't think I'm going to lose anything.
I mean in terms of that kind of strength — is that something you feel like you're going to miss?
SS: No, I never liked that full exertion anyway. Typically because of my role in the organization, someone else did the dirty work anyway. I physically can't do it now. If anything, I try not to generalize about the superiority of the feminine sex as opposed to the other one.
You mean the idea that while [you're] choosing the other one [you] must feel it's superior... you don't want to give that impression?
SS: Putting aside the aspect of inferiority or superiority, the transsexual individual is uniquely situated to have experiential growth in both genders that neither gender can have unless you've been in both. And it's just been fascinating, this metamorphosis, it's been fascinating from an academic, introspective perspective — fascinating —
It's gotta be.
SS: I sound like Spock — it's fascinating.
Well, no, you're — I mean all these questions we're having about gender, what it means, you're gonna live through what it means to you viscerally to be a man to be a woman — and what it means to move through society. You've done that already when you've cross-dressed.
SS: It's not cross-dressing, it's being yourself, it's a matter of gender identification.
The times you've transitioned — what's the best verb to use when you're dressing as a woman?
SS: You're not dressing as a woman, you're presenting yourself, you're presenting your own identity, your gender.
When you've presented, if you... One of the things you were saying that you came to terms with in that Harvard conference was the loss of power as a white male. Have you experienced that loss of power when you've been moving in the world as a woman, and said, "Whoa, I would never let them get away with that if I were a man?"
SS: No, if anything, if you're in the world of women people tend to buy you drinks.
Has that happened to you?
SS: Oh, absolutely... The first time someone ever did that, I did what any guy would do, I freaked out.
Really?
SS: Yeah, I mean, why's this person walking up to me? Because you're not a guy, that's why.
So then what? Did you let him buy you the drink?
SS: No, I scared him off. And I made him feel bad, and he had this look of dejection on his face.
And he went away hating women again.
SS: Absolutely. And I thought about, jeez, why did I do that? Cause I could remember women doin' that to me. So there was a learning opportunity there.
So have you had subsequent opportunity to accept a drink?
SS; Yeah, because it's easier and more natural to do that if someone is doing it for just an act of kindness and seeing a single woman by themselves — absolutely.
So you must be a pretty attractive chick — men buying you drinks...
SS: I don't know — it's natural to me. Some people can do it easier than others — I've got a small build and small hands and size 8-and-a-half foot — so most women are bigger than I am so it's not a problem.
[Karen laughing]
SS: What size shoe do you have?
KD: 8-and-a-half.
SS: Oh, OK, there you go, so we can share shoes.
KD: Wanna wear my flip flops?
SS: No, I hate flip flops.
KD: Of course you do...
Is he the highest-ranking official to do this?
KD: To publicly transition. There may have been people who transitioned before [they took office]... but in government as far as we know he's the only city manager who has tried to transition on the job.
SS: I'm not aware of anybody on this level. Probably because smart people realize that it could [lead to] this.
KD: And a lot of folks would take the easier road, and again I think this speaks volumes about Steve's character.
SS: Or stupidity.
KD: They would resign their position, transition, and then go try and find something else — because it's too painful, it's too public, it's too high-profile.
SS: Which I talked about in my letter to employees. A while back I broke my nose training with our SWAT team. We play hard, and you know I had this machine gun, and they're coming at me with this great big shield, and there's seven of them and one of me, and I have this very powerful weapon that hurts when you get hit, so you don't want to get hit if you don't have to. And they're coming at me and I'm thinking if I can just reload, and by the time I got done doing that, I've got seven people on top of me and they broke my nose. And a couple of them said, "Why don't you give up?" and I said I can't do that. I'm not one to lay down my weapon just because it becomes difficult. If you knock me on my butt, OK, but it's not in my personal constitution to lay my weapon down, I can't do that, and that's why we're here today. I can't walk away from a job I love and a profession I've devoted so much time to. Knock me on my butt and take my weapon away, I'll go home, but I can't walk away, it's not in my nature.
You know, the "lay my weapon down" image has other connotations.
SS: What connotation does it have? Educate me.
If you're looking at masculine identity, penis as weapon, you're laying it down if you're [cutting] it off.
SS: God, that's weird.
Sorry.
SS: Oh, that's so Freudian.
I know, but it's there, right?
SS: Oh, God, I thought y'all died a long time ago. No, I don't relate to any Freudian psychology.
That's not completely out of left field, it's kind of ...
KD: This is my weapon, this is my gun.
It's not just Freudian, it's about male force being equated with male genitalia, so that — I mean, that's one of the things you're talking about when you're talking about fearing losing the power of being a white male. For whatever reason, those associations are made — you don't have your weapon anymore.
KD: I think there's like a military expression — a weapon is the neutral, you know, bang-bang, and a gun is your male genitalia.
Really? There's a distinction?
KD: This my gun, this is my weapon.
SS: Jeez, this is so far above me, I've never heard of—
KD: I don't know, that's what I get for marrying a Navy girl.
SS: This must be a GBLT thing.
That's what all of us with those initials talk about all the time. See what you've been missing?
SS: I know, I never thought I was as odd as I maybe am, with the weapon and the gun and giving it up.
KD: Well, that will be for others to analyze.
Indeed it will. I imagine the gay press has been approaching you?
KD: I've done a number of interviews with the LGBT press. The answer is yes, and GenderPAC has requested an interview with [Steve]. The National Center for Transgender Equality has been great. As a matter of fact their executive director is flying in tomorrow. What's really funny is this has become our full-time job 24/7 at both NCLR and the National Center for Transgender Quality — this story, this case. I have two phones — my office phone and my cell phone — I'm on one and the other one rings. But It's about public education, and again this is one of the things about Steve that's so admirable. Not only is he committed to being true to himself, he's committed to this process being about something bigger than him. So he's willing to speak out about deeply intimate, deeply private details of his life [Steve cringes comically] in the hope that it will help others in the future — and not every client that we have is willing to do that.
SS: As a small kid I can remember waking up, thinking, "Am I bad?" You know from an early age that you're profoundly different. You create victims, you create deception that people perceive when they don't know who you are because you don't know who yourself is. So hopefully when all this is done, to me the true test is when some small kid wakes up in the middle of the night thinking at age 5 or 6, his parents will be able to recognize, "Well then, maybe it's this," and maybe there's a way of dealing with that in a responsible fashion instead of finding out 10 minutes before a news conference, that... "Omigod you've gotta be kidding!"
A lot of transgendered characters [have been surfacing in pop] culture — were they speaking to you at all? Hedwig? Crying Game?
SS: Without sounding like a nerd, I don't watch those things. I watch C-Span and The History Channel. So all these shows that people talk about I've never seen, I've never heard of these ... All these popular things — I didn't know the BLGT group.
I can remember recognizing gay feelings back as far as I was 9. But that's about [feeling] attracted to the same sex. It's not about questioning your gender. So how does that realization come to you as a child?
SS: Yeah, great question. One of the defining diagnostic necessities when you're diagnosed with gender disorder is early childhood sensitivities to this, and when you're young you know you're different you don't even know how. When I was a kid I used to love going to the candy store in my sister's shoes. Why did I want to go in my ... I have no idea, but I knew when I wore my sister's shoes it was right, it was good, but I also knew how profoundly wrong it was. No matter the time of year, I took 'em off before I went into the candy store. I never told my parents about it. As a small child I longed to find out what it was, that's why I asked my mom, when I was 7 or 8, what my name would have been if I were a girl — this is a small kid asking this —and when she said Susan it just kind of exploded in my head. So when I hear people now having kids that they think are transgendered and they're making these very difficult parental choices, introducing drugs to postpone the onset of puberty so they don't have to do what I've done with this electrolysis in your face and other parts of your body, which is very painful, if you can spare some of this trauma, physical, mental, emotional, societal, other families, this would be great. So I mean hopefully, I don't know what my future is in Largo, I hope I get my job back, if not, God has a plan. If not, I'm pretty positive and pretty confident that when all is said and done, when all this is behind us, especially with all the press, maybe people will say that you can be transsexual, you can be city manager of a large organization with thousands of employees, with hundreds of millions of dollars, and you can still be a productive member of society, and that's OK. If I can achieve that, all of this will be reflectively irrelevant and all worth the journey.
Just one more question — about [Equality Florida Executive Director Nadine Smith, arrested during the Largo City Commission hearing for allegedly handing out flyers]: As a city manager, did you remember any policy that prevented fliers from being handed out at public meetings?
SS: Well, yeah, I guess so. I mean, typically — this is where I get these cross loyalties — typically when we have a public gathering like that, the issuance of fliers sometimes does develop confrontational exchanges between people, and if they do fall on the ground, it sounds absurd, but people are going to slip on them. We try not to encourage people to do that type of thing — I don't know the particular circumstances, all those guys I trained with and they're pretty sophisticated in this area — I wasn't briefed prior to and after, but typically I had been involved in those decisions.
[Long pause]
KD: Is a flier —?
There's some question as to whether she was actually handing them out.
KD: If somebody asks for a piece of paper—
And you give it to them, and then you ask the cop why, and the officer does not respond, and instead gets rougher with you?
KD: Actually, as your attorney I'm going to ask you not to answer that question.
SS: I'm right in the middle of this thing.
KD: I think this is best if he doesn't comment on that particular circumstance. I mean there are criminal charges against her, which hopefully when the state attorney evaluates, the state attorney will drop those charges and that'll be that. But you know there are questions about how that was all handled. He doesn't have any personal knowledge of that.
You were otherwise engaged.
SS: They acted appropriately — they escorted me out of the building, my e-mail account was dropped. I was proud of everybody, without commenting on the [Smith] situation.
KD: He was on the dais when the incident happened. He was not present for any of that.
Are you the top dog? Or is the mayor your boss?
SS: In our organization, the mayor is the political leader of the commission, but in terms of who gives direction to cops, etc, the city manager is extremely influential.
More power than the mayor or the commission.
SS: I don't want to say power — but ability to hire, appoint and direct resources — I have, the mayor does not. I mean I've hired every executive manager in that city except one [finance director]. Irrespective of my future, when I said I am Largo, I've hired everybody and long after I'm gone, my philosophy, my values, my way of doing certain things will live on in that organization in ways that other managers can have a career of 25 or 30 years and never have an experience like a Largo.
So our cover idea is kind of personally upsetting.
SS: Yeah, I love my city. I couldn't endorse that. It's a good organization.
