Sam Leizear was born on December 18th, 1958 and raised in Maryland. His hometown, Damascus, was rural and somewhat segregated when he was growing up. The youngest of three and assigned female at birth, Sam was a shy kid who preferred climbing trees and playing in mud, and recalls being “hidden” when his much-older sisters brought boyfriends home. When Sam was nine, he got his mom to buy him a toy shaving set, which he hid under the floorboards of his bedroom. “When everybody was out […he] would pop into the only bathroom and pretend-shave.” When the kit disappeared, Sam didn’t know who’d taken it, but he knew he couldn’t ask.

While attending community college, Sam made some discoveries. When he had to do a presentation on a book for a class, he picked one by trans author Jan Morris and gave his presentation with a lower voice after a recent bout of laryngitis. He recalls thinking at the time, “Hmm, I need to get some more information here.” Sam transferred to West Virginia University, which enabled him to finally leave home, meet gay and lesbian classmates, and check out “every single book they had on LGB. [There] wasn’t a whole lot on T’s.” In Morgantown’s only gay bar, Sam was finally able to meet women.

Although Sam was more comfortable in the queer community, he still felt alienated from his body, and didn’t find much helpful information.  Sam found power in his spirituality and fought to find and create affirming church spaces. While he was still a student, Sam and some friends started a branch of the Metropolitan Community Church in Morgantown that was a safe haven for the WVU queer community until 1982.

He graduated in 1980 with a degree in journalism, but didn’t want to work in that field. Instead, he started working in community mental health in West Virginia, supporting people who had been released from the overcrowded and “dated” Weston State Hospital. Sam learned to advocate for people the state and medical systems had failed. He also became acutely aware how easily people were institutionalized, especially for deviating from gender and other “norms”. Sam was deeply protective of his sexuality and gender, since even living out of the closet as his birth gender was risky.

In 1990, Sam met his wife. Six months after their first date, they moved into Sam’s tiny house, surviving blizzards with “two or three dogs and about eight cats.” In 1999, Sam and his wife were preparing to teach an LGBTQ studies course together. They planned to show queer films in the class, including one that changed Sam’s life, You Don’t Know Dick, a documentary featuring five trans men telling their life stories. Previewing the film before class, Sam had a visceral emotional reaction, thinking, “Oh my God, I thought this was buried.”

By the early aughts, Sam realized that he couldn’t hide his identity from himself or others anymore. He and his wife started therapy, and after some initial struggling, she supported Sam as he started his medical transition and changed his name, taking his father’s middle name as his first name. Sam worked as a social worker for more than 40 years  which included serving and advocating for trans people in West Virginia, where he still lives with his wife enjoying nature and their special needs rescue dogs.

Bio Author: Charlotte Lang-Bush