Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
My name is Fredericka, my last name is Robinson, I'm not part of the Swiss Family Robinson.
However my name is Fredericka Robinson
and I came up with that name for my authentic life,
well, my real name was Frederick, and in Spanish, Fredericka with an "a" means feminine, and "o" means masculine.
And that's one of the reasons why I chose that name.
I'm one of a kind in that area, because not too many people have my name.
I'm 50 years old,
I'm *** positive, 18 some years, uh... ago
Understanding who you are, as an individual,
sexually,
I'm very comfortable with me, I'm comfortable with my skin
uh... I don't have anything, I'm nice-looking, I have a lot of good qualities about myself,
and I've a beautiful smile one thing about my smile is that it
is very energetic and people say, "you have such a nice smile"
And so, I utilize my tools, I utilize who I am, I utilize the part that
my family expects a lot from me,
and because I may have gone from trans, from male to female
uh... that doesn't stop who you are, and who I am,
is that I have to still be responsible, uh, I have to still, I have two younger
ones that I, they're actually not young anymore, they're 19 and 24,
but they still need guidance. Then I have older parents, I have a 77-year-old mother,
and I have an 86-year-old dad,
and they have concerns, as well, just to say the life,
you gotta live it on your terms, being here and living in the now.
I can't say about whether or to go the past, because yesterday was yesterday, today is
right now
so I'm speaking to you out there, it's about
right now. We all have dreams inside of ourselves, we all want to know about
certain things, and other people out there want to know,
with is transgender life all about,
well, for me, transgender life is about the camaraderie, yes, because we need
to stick together, we stick together, with a lot of,
and I'm a community lay person, I sit on the board,
I try to be politically aware of some of the things
that goes on with us, and around issues,
issues of being formerly incarcerated, which has been named.
There is a number of things that I've learned in this conference this weekend.
And one of them is that Transgender Law Center
you know, have in place where you can get your name change, you could have been
all your life, and
these are things I wasn't really aware of how to actually go about doing that
so, responsibilities you have to as a community member.
And the hate crimes is something I'm really concerned about, those changes in that
law, those changes in the law that advocate for those people that do get hurt.
One thing in our community that I go to is a weekly transgender group,
I see that the figure of
representation of not only ***-positive transgender women,
but ***-positive, and
formerly incarcerated, so I'll always,
but I never forget where I came from, over 12 years ago,
I had an experience being incarcerated, and so,
I do understand some of the
trials and tribulations that transgender people have to go through,
and yes there's a lot of discrimination, there's a lot of stigma, being that we spend
lots of money in prison, we need to understand what goes on
you know the community is the one that pays the tax dollars and the prison budget is
the biggest in California
out here in California, it is one of the biggest budgets,
and so here they house inmates and stuff, and so the trans people are part of that,
because if they haven't had the sex change,
then they will go into the men's prison,
so that's another thing, another big concern,
and I'm trying to do better, with their support,
my transgender group, but I do have friends, and
it's a wonderful thing too,
to be part of the community
I'm thankful