Special episode for LGBTQ History Month, 2023
“I really became a person, a human being, however you want to say that, when I became a woman.”
These days, Sandy Stone is a community elder. She’s a vital force behind the radio station that hosts The Babblery, KSQD in Santa Cruz, CA. She’s retired from academia, which she joined after retiring from her illustrious career as a recording engineer. There’s a lot to say about Sandy’s many life achievements.
But in this episode, we explore all sides of a question that has followed Sandy throughout her life: What is a woman?
Identified male at birth, in a time when identification at birth was the only gender option available, Sandy always knew she was different. But what that difference was, and what it meant to her, was a question she sought to answer. She didn’t see herself reflected in the Jewish housewives of her youth. She didn’t see herself in the nonstop, high-stress world of a rock’n’roll recording studio that became her next home. And she definitely didn’t see herself in the first transgender women she met when she ended up in San Francisco, finally ready to take on the question of her gender.
When Sandy looked around her, and when she looked in the mirror, she didn’t see herself. Finally, through transition and through seeking out women who accepted her and fit with her, she found herself.
“It took a lot of work. It took a lot of effort. It was filled with pain and joy and various kinds of ecstasy and surprise. I have an identity that works for me. And that’s all I can ask of the world. I wish it for everyone.”
For more information:
- Learn about the forthcoming film about Sandy’s Life, “Girl Island”
- Learn more about Sandy’s achievements
- Pressed for time? Listen to a short news-style segment of the interview with Sandy Stone, putting together her thoughts on the current controversies over gender care for youth.
- Listen to the lightly edited, rough cut of our conversation, which includes Sandy’s digression into her time as recording engineer for Jimi Hendrix and other notable 60s artists
The song “Be my Girl” by Karyn Ellis is from the Free Music Archive.