Erika Joyner - The Outwords Archive

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Erika Joyner smiles with her hand on her hip while wearing a silky, blue mini dress in a blonde bob. She shares that at this time she’d still been in the closet, save for select Roanoke Ladies and Gents or Roanoke Diversity Center events. Buena Vista, Virginia, April 2012. Photo courtesy of Erika Joyner.

Erika Joyner (blonde, middle) playing the fiddle with Nancy Jones and the Rival bandmates at a gig at the CoffeePot. In Roanoke, Virginia, January 2019. Photo courtesy of Erika Joyner.

Erika Joyner (right) jamming with her band buddies at a dear friend’s house during her 73rd birthday party; she shares that this friend helped her discover that she is a poet. Virginia, September, 2018. Photo courtesy of Erika Joyner.

Erika smiles while wearing a green and white cheerleader outfit for Halloween, where she shot league pool, en femme, at bars around Roanoke. October, 2019, Roanoke, Virginia. Photo courtesy of Erika Joyner.

Erika smiles contentedly on a forest trail, in front of a waterfall. She shares that for a while she and her friends would hike the four-mile Cascades trail up to falls on her birthday– and that it’d be worth every step. Cascade Falls, Pembroke, Virginia, 2019 Photo courtesy of Erika Joyner.

Erika Joyner with long blonde hair, that she grew out (after ditching her wig) since living as full-time female in Roanoke since 2012. Here she’s reading a poem at an event, she says that her passion for poetry helped her be more visible as her true self at open mics around town. Roanoke, Virginia, 2018. Photo courtesy of Erika Joyner.

Erika smiles in a white dressy suit at a gala, as co-founder of the Roanoke Diversity Center’s LGBTQ+ community center annual fundraisers. Roanoke, Virginia, 2019 Photo courtesy of Erika Joyner.

Erika smiles in a blue and violet floral outfits at her friend Dotsy’s marriage reception, “having the time of (her) life;” Dotsy had grown tired of referring to her partner as her “spousal equivalent.” Roanoke, VA, 2023 Photo courtesy of Erika Joyner.

Erika Joyner has led with her love of community for decades, building artistic activist spaces all over the country. She was born in 1945 in New York, but soon moved with her family to Detroit. A middle child of four siblings, young Erika was shy, and found acceptance in music, playing the viola in a junior high orchestra. In high school, she switched to the guitar so she could play folk music in a trio, the first of many bands for her.

As a kid, Erika had no exposure to the LGBTQ community, so she couldn’t contradict the stigmas and stereotypes that were getting thrown at her. The machismo the world seemed to expect from her never felt right, and she internalized it painfully until her mid-fifties, when she realized that she felt unwelcome in masculinity because she was actually a woman. She began to realize how deeply she had been affected by what she now realized was gender dysphoria.

After high school, Erika went to college for three years before getting deeply involved with New Left political groups like the Detroit Committee to End the War in Vietnam and People Against Racism, as well as food co-ops. She moved to North Carolina in her late twenties, “odd-jobbing it” for several years and jamming in bands with friends in her spare time. In her forties, she married her ex-wife Cathy. They lived in Lexington, VA in the ‘90s, where Erika started her own bookkeeping business.

Erika describes her process of coming out as occurring in stages: she came out to herself in her mid-fifties, and to others, including Cathy, starting while living in Lexington, VA in the 2000’s. After 12 years of marriage, Erika could no longer ignore her need to transition, and the two divorced. While coming out to Cathy was initially contentious, they’ve come a long way since, and are now friendly and supportive of each other.

In 2009, she helped found the Ladies and Gents of the Blue Ridge transgender support group, as well as the Roanoke Diversity Center. Her work with these groups sparked her decision to leave the conservative town of Buena Vista for Roanoke in 2012. In her words, she “moved to Roanoke to realize my personal mission to begin living my life as my authentic self, that is coming out of the closet and presenting as a woman.”

Erika’s love for Roanoke is reciprocated: in 2016, she was honored with a recognition and appreciation award from the Roanoke Diversity Center. She’s continued to use her gifts for both art and activism to give back to her community, founding a women’s poetry workshop, The Power of Women Poetry Presence, in 2018. While the workshop itself didn’t last long, Erika thinks of it fondly, and always has her eye open for more chances to read her work.

Music has always allowed Erika to fit into different genres and communities seamlessly. While living in N. Carolina, she played her fiddle in a Southern rock band. When she first moved to Virginia, she met people by playing electric bass in a jazz combo.. More recently, she reunited with a band she’d played in before transitioning to honor their recently passed drummer. Although she’d changed significantly in the years since she’d last played with them, music was their common denominator, and she played bass proudly as herself. She currently plays three instruments: electric bass, guitar, and violin, having performed in different bands in Roanoke.

She has found a home of kindred spirits at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Roanoke where she has served as Board President, VP Finance and, currently, Capital Campaign Finance Co-Chair as well as a member of their Pride Committee.

Bio Author: Charlotte Lang-Bush

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