Interview Of Jamie Bauer

NYC Trans Oral History Project

Jamie Bauer recounts their childhood and adolescence growing up in New York City’s Stuyvesant Town, resisting family pressure to conform to normative gender expressions and discovering butch femme culture in the Village. They discuss finding political and social community as a college student in Boston engaged in gay rights organizing, and, later, as part of Women’s Pentagon Action in New York City. They chronicle their involvement in ACT UP, describing the group’s culture and interpersonal dynamics, memorable direct actions, and shifts in its strategies and goals, as well as the broader political climate of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Jamie also details the evolution of their own non-binary transmasculine identity alongside the increased visibility of the transgender movement, and the complexities of negotiating their relationship with their longtime partner, choices related to their transition, and their queer identity. (Summary by Justine Ambrose.)