NIX MENDY:

Okay, Earline. I wanted to preface this by saying that it's also good for you to give us the fullest answers that you can. For example, if I ask you, "What did you have for breakfast this morning?" You'll be like, "I had sausage, egg, and cheese for breakfast." Or I don't know, whatever. Basically, try to incorporate the question into your answer. Is the best way to sort of go.

EARLINE BUDD:

Got it.

NIX MENDY:

To start from the beginning, could you please like, say and spell your name for us?

EARLINE BUDD:

Yes. My name is Earline Budd. It's spelled e-a-r-l-i-n-e b-u-d-d.

NIX MENDY:

Great. Can you also tell us when and where you were born and raised?

EARLINE BUDD:

I was born here in Washington, DC.

EARLINE BUDD:

Born and raised, Washingtonian.

NIX MENDY:

Thanks. Can you tell us what you remember about your early childhood? Like, what was your family, what was your neighborhood and your community like at the time?

EARLINE BUDD:

I grew up in a family of six children. One of them being male and five being girls.

EARLINE BUDD:

I say that because one of the five girls is transgender, which is myself. I do identify as female. And my family was very religious. We grew up in what we call holiness. We went to church a lot during the week after we got outta school, we had to go to church in the evenings and we didn't get home till, maybe like 9, 10 o'clock. Of course, I grew all of that.

EARLINE BUDD:

I went to school, as normal kids do. I went to Garrison Elementary, and that was my elementary school. My high school was Francis, and I graduated from Martha Washington, a senior high school, which, believe it or not, was supposed to be an all-girls school, but they had allowed some individuals

EARLINE BUDD:

who were of the other gender to be a part of it, so I enjoyed being there. I really did.

NIX MENDY:

Great. I was wondering if you could actually talk a little bit more about how your sort of religious upbringing kind of affected you. I think having to go to church after school sounds like a lot long day to sort of put yourself through. I, also, am just curious about

NIX MENDY:

how you sort of reacted to being in that space.

EARLINE BUDD:

Well, you know what? At first, it was like, it was slightly okay, but as I started, I guess, aging and still going, but at some point I felt different in terms of my sexuality and who I was. At that time when I say that I meant I was feeling like feminine

EARLINE BUDD:

and having desires to want to wear my sister's clothes. Of course, that was a no-no for my mother and my father. But at some point, I got older, the religion went to the back. That was something that I could not do. I couldn't really focus and I did not understand my sexuality in terms of what was going on with me.

EARLINE BUDD:

All I knew was that I was different, different from my sisters and different from my brother. I wasn't able to identify and try to, I guess, kind of correlate in terms of what was going on until I got a little bit older. When I say a little bit older, I'm talking about like, 13, 14

EARLINE BUDD:

maybe in that area. That was when I actually start my first interaction with my sexuality in terms of the femininity was when we had to do a play in school and everybody had to play a role, and you selected who you wanted to play. I selected a person called Flip Wilson. The Flip Wilson's

EARLINE BUDD:

personality was a woman called Geraldine, and it was a comedian. I selected that. Every time the school had something, I mean they did it like every couple of weeks I was Geraldine. My father had an issue with it and was like, well, why are you coming home dressed up as a girl all the time? And I say, Because it's part of the play, Daddy, it's part of the play.

EARLINE BUDD:

He said, But shouldn't you do that at school? Why are you coming home? I said, I feel comfortable. And he said, Well, no, I don't want you to feel comfortable coming home dressed like that. I had to leave my clothes at the school and what ended up happening was I ended up putting the clothes in a bag as I remember it and sneaking 'em in the house. Whenever I got a chance to put on my garments,

EARLINE BUDD:

my female garments, I just felt so good. I really felt good. As I started to age just a little bit more, I started to feel more and more feminine and I slightly had an attraction to the opposite sex, meaning -- No, no, the same sex, male. My history is just, it could be drawn out forever. But I ended up

EARLINE BUDD:

actually finally identifying to a friend of mine's named Barbara Ross, who went to school with me. She was like my best -- Like, in school, girls have girlfriends, she was like my best girlfriend. I used to treat her with money my mother and father used to give me. We go to McDonald's, I remember that, or Ben's Chili Bowl and I would treat her. She was like, everything. I could open up and tell her

EARLINE BUDD:

absolutely anything. Unfortunately, there did come a time, not unfortunately, but fortunately, there did come a time when I actually told her that I felt different and that there was some stuff going on with me and I wanted to share it with her. She didn't want me to really, really keep it in, but she was playing some music and I remember it now. It was a song, back in the days, called, it's a Thin Line

EARLINE BUDD:

Between Love and Hate. I was boohooing and crying when the song was playing and she was saying, Budd, what's wrong? Why are you crying? And I said, Barbara, I can't tell you. I can't tell you. She said, No, you have to tell me what is going on with you. What's wrong? I said, Barbara, I'm in love. And she said, Oh, that's a good thing.

EARLINE BUDD:

You are in love. I say, Yes. She says, To who? And then I said, I can't tell you. I can't tell you because then it really just -- It's just too much. And she managed to convince me to tell her, so I said, Barbara, I'm in love with Michael Boxdale. And she said, What? No, you can't be, that's my boyfriend. I said, Yes, I'm in love. I said,

EARLINE BUDD:

I didn't want to tell you. And she said, How long has he been feeling that way? I say, Since I've been on the cheerleading squad and everything. So she said, No, I'm gonna have to call Michael over here, I gotta call him. Does he know this? And I said, I don't think he does. I said, Please don't call him over here. And she say, No, I want to call him over. And I said, because he only lived up the street, on R street.

EARLINE BUDD:

So about, I guess about 5, 10 minutes he rushed in and it's a thin line between Lover Hay was still playing . So, and he rushed in and oh, he hugged her and I was, and then he was hugging her and kissing her. And I was looking like, ugh. Then he said, What's wrong? He said, Hey, Budd, how are you? I say, Fine, hi Michael. And then she said, Budd has a secret,

EARLINE BUDD:

and Michael said A secret about what? And you called me to tell me the secret. She say, You do know what they be saying about Budd in school, right? And then he say, Yeah, that he's like, I don't know what you call it, faggy or whatever. I said, No, it's gay. So he said, Okay, well, gay, I'm sorry. So she say, Well, anyhow, because Budd is like that, Budd feel like a female. He said, Oh well

EARLINE BUDD:

that's his business. She said, There's one more caveat to it Michael. And he said, What is that? He said, He's in love. That's why I called you. He said, You called me because Budd is in love. What that gotta do with me? And then she said, Sit down Michael. And he sat down on the sofa, I'll never forget it, next to her. And she say, Budd has been attracted to you the whole time we've been together and Budd is in love with you. He said, That's impossible. No, man,

EARLINE BUDD:

I don't go like that. I don't do that. And I was saying, I'm not saying that Michael that way it just happened that I was in love with you. And then he said, no, it can't be that way. So I said, I'm sorry, I should have never brought it out and all that. And of course the next thing happened was he went back to school and told the whole football team that I was gay and that I was in love with him. And so

EARLINE BUDD:

what ended up happening was that we had a weekend -- I call it excursion parties on Corcoran Street. I'll never forget it. And they had invited me to the party because Barbara and all of 'em were there too. And so it was on R street. Back in those days we used to call them a little like get together for young kids and it would be at somebody's house. It was on Corcoran Street.

EARLINE BUDD:

I was invited, Barbara Ross and Michael and all the other football players, everybody was invited. We got there and there wasn't supposed to be -- I'm trying to remember, I don't think it was supposed to be any alcohol or anything, but I think somehow somebody got some beer or wine or something in there. We all danced and partied and all that. Barbara and them slow dragged.

EARLINE BUDD:

I was the only one didn't get to slow drag with nobody. Of course, there was a couple girls was asking me, Budd, you wanna slow drag? I said, I don't wanna slow drag with you. I wanted to slow drag with Michael or either one of the football players, but that didn't happen. The party was over and when we left, we all went about R Street, Barbara and them went the other way because her and the girls were going home. That was my first

EARLINE BUDD:

experience in terms of any sexual experience with the same sex. Somehow, they had convinced me to go down in a basement by a library, the Jewish something library down in the basement. We went down there and I had sex with multiple guys. I didn't know what to call. I just know that I was enjoying myself and I guess I was telling myself I was a female. But the next day

EARLINE BUDD:

when I went to school, the boys had told the girls that -- They used the word "faggy." Budd is a faggy. We know Budd is a faggy. They was like, how do y'all know? Well, they didn't say anything. In class the girls started, and they never really did that, but after the boys told 'em, because this was their boyfriends, about me being gay,

EARLINE BUDD:

the girls was like teasing me and saying Budd is a faggy, Budd is a faggy, when the teacher left out. For me, my only way to retaliate against them was to tell them. And I say, yes, I may be a faggy, but I also know what your boyfriend looks like in his pants. I remember I said something like that,

EARLINE BUDD:

I didn't say about the sex, I just said in the pants. And they was giving, What? What do you know? I was like -- And, you know, being transgender, which came up later, that language ... Because back in the years when I was coming up, transgender was not even in the terminology. It was just simply being gay. Eventually, being transgender, I realized that I was gonna probably end up

EARLINE BUDD:

dressing differently, being differently and those kind of things. My family did not find out until I was -- What? 13 and a half? I want to say 13 and a half years old, and that was because I used to climb out my back window. I had a room in the back of the house. I used to climb out the back window down the ladder and put on my girl clothes and go downtown

EARLINE BUDD:

where I had heard, I didn't know for a fact, but I'd heard that there were people like me that hung out. That's where my first experience was with 7th and 0, 9th and 0 is our history. We had clubs called the Jet Lounge, the Lottie Domingos. For my age, I was large so, believe it or not, I was able to get

EARLINE BUDD:

into clubs, I was able to get into clubs and I was dressed up in my little skirt in my tennis shoes. I remember I used to talk to guys and I didn't know what that was like. It was kind of strange to me. It was like, Hey, come here cutie pie. What you trying to do? You a cutie. How old is you? About 20-19? I said, yes, I'm 19. Lo and behold I was like 13 and a half, 14. Oh God. What happened was I ended up sneaking out like a couple of days a week going down

EARLINE BUDD:

in the 7th and 0, 9th and 0. And it was a real experience. Then one night when I went back home, the ladder was gone and I said, oh my God, the ladder gone. How I'm gonna get back up in the room and change my clothes and everything? Come to find out who had took the ladder, my father. I had to walk around the front in female clothes,

EARLINE BUDD:

plus I was a little bit intoxicated. I went around and knocked on the door and banged on the door and my father came to the door. That was the experience ... I mean, I can accept it today because of the -- His reaction was, what the hell? And then he called my mother, her nickname was Ring. He said, Ring, come down here. Ring, get up.

EARLINE BUDD:

Look at this boy dressed up like this. Where have you been? I said, I've been out daddy playing Flip Wilson. He said, Flip Wilson at one o'clock in the morning? He said, I'm gonna get that belt and I'm gonna wear you out. Because I was drunk, so wearing me didn't really matter. But anyhow he did what he did. He whooped me and I went on in my room, closed the door, and then I just went on the bed and still

EARLINE BUDD:

I went to sleep with the memories of all the fun I'd had and how much fun it was like to be out. The next day that morning, my father woke me up and he said he wanted to talk to me with my mother. I felt really bad about being transgender or being gay at that time because they were arguing with each other

EARLINE BUDD:

and he was saying, where did that discussion, where did it come from? It didn't come from my side of the family. It must have came from yours. My mother said, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what would make him want to be a girl. We gotta take him to the doctor or something and maybe get him checked out because maybe something is going on. That's the next part of my life that I experienced. It didn't take a long time

EARLINE BUDD:

because they took me Children's Hospital, which was an adolescent clinic on 11th and V. When they took me in there, it wasn't nothing but me talking to this guy, had on a white jacket. He was looking at me saying, do you know who you are? I said, yeah. I say my name Earl Budd. And he said, no, do you know who you are? I said, yes, I'm born male.

EARLINE BUDD:

And then he said, what else? And I said, but I feel like female. He said, how long has that been? I say, it is been a while, a long time now. Then he said, okay, I want you to do some things with me. I'm gonna put some blocks down here and I want you to put them together and then a little puzzle. I said, what am I here for? He said, you're here because your parents are saying that there are some concerns about how you are identifying.

EARLINE BUDD:

He said, you're identifying as female, but you are a male. And I said, oh, okay. I put the blocks together in that. He said it was nothing wrong with that, he reported to them that there was nothing wrong with my ability to, I guess, I don't know, understand or what have you. Then they ran some type of test,

EARLINE BUDD:

some test to test my chromosomes. Yeah, that's the word, chromosomes. Then I remember it was like three days later, my mother and father were talking, they said the doctor had called them on the phone and explained to them that what they had seen was that I had more female chromosomes than I did male chromosomes, and that

EARLINE BUDD:

could be addressed by giving me male hormone injections. But because my mother and father were religious, it was a no-no. They said no. They said no. My father talked to me about it. He said he asked the doctor, well since we are choosing not to give him male hormones to balance his genes out, what is gonna happen with him?

EARLINE BUDD:

The doctor said what's gonna happen is as he continues to age, he's probably going to get more and more feminine. And that more and more feminine is gonna mean that he may eventually end up wanting to wear female garments full-time. Then lastly, he may also end up having a sexual encounter with a male. When my father told me that,

EARLINE BUDD:

I said no. I said, I like boys though. I feel like a girl. Yeah. But he said, but you're not a girl. My mother used to lay out our clothes for us for school, me and my sisters. I used to take my clothes and put 'em on one of my sister's side and I would put on her clothes. My mother was furious. She said, where do you think you going looking like that? Go up them stairs before I whoop you

EARLINE BUDD:

and put on the clothes you're supposed to put on. I went and put 'em on. But then I still used to go and find panties and bras of my mother's and put underneath my clothes. For me, life just moved right on because I ended up -- One is they knew that I was gonna have a sexual encounter because

EARLINE BUDD:

my next door neighbor named Barney, his grandmother had came over and asked my father one time, "Can Shorty come over and spend the night with Barney because they get along so well?" Talking about me. My mother said, yeah, he can come over and spend the night. Went over and spent the night with Barney and just something happened. It was just like, I don't know, it was just -- Right now I'm having chills

EARLINE BUDD:

thinking about it. As a child, we was looking at each other and then all of a sudden we was hugging and doing little kids, I guess call ourself kissing, as if he was kissing a girl, and that's how I felt. Then we took our pajamas off and his grandmother came in and caught us. Lord Jesus . Why did that happen? Oh my God. She came in, she said, what in the hell?

EARLINE BUDD:

What is going on? Oh my God. She said, what have you done to my grandson? You going home. Acting like that, like a faggy little boy. And grabbed me by my ear, say, put your pajamas on. Took me over and knocked on my door. My father came downstairs, I'll never forget it. And she say, Mr. Budd. And my father said, yes. What's wrong? She said, your grandson had my -- I don't even want to

EARLINE BUDD:

repeat it, what I saw. It was disgusting. She said, I gotta pray on God on this. He was on top of him doing something. And I was laughing, it was a little funny for me. But then he got that belt, I had to get another whooping. I said, Lord Jesus, how many whoopings I gotta get? My mother sat me down and she asked me, she said, what is going on? Do you understand what's going on with you? I said, I don't know,

EARLINE BUDD:

I'm just -- I'm different and I like boys. She said, but you're not supposed to, sweetheart. Your father wants you to get a girl, so eventually you'll have a baby. I said, I'm not having no baby. She say, well, I don't know what to tell you but your father is not gonna allow this. This is not gonna keep happening. I start wearing her clothes and she start picking up that I was

EARLINE BUDD:

wearing her clothes, so she start locking her clothes up. I heard about a store called Woodworth and Loafers that was downtown DC. I heard they had female clothes in there, so somebody say, well, that's where people go when they want to go and shoplift. Some of the kids in school was talking about, I just go in there if I want to just get something, I get it. I'm a kid. They don't even bother me. I said, I can go in there and get me some girl clothes then.

EARLINE BUDD:

I went into Woodworth and Loafers and put myself some bras or some panties and a nice outfit under my coat. And next thing I know when I got to the door, the security, I'll never forget it grabbed me, say little girl, come on here, what you think you doing? I say, stop, stop, I remember it. Say, come on here, we're taking you back in the office. Took me back in the office, took the clothes my coat and said, what's your name?

EARLINE BUDD:

I say, Budd. No, What's your whole name? I say, Earl Budd. He say, Earl Budd. And the security guy said, Earl Budd? That sounds like a male name. You are a little girl. I said, no, I'm just dressed like this. He said, okay, do you have your father's phone number? And I said, yes. I gave him

EARLINE BUDD:

my father's phone number and he called my father and told my father that he needed to come get me. I was caught stealing little female garments. They went back and forth on the phone. I can vividly remember it like yesterday. I kept hearing them say something like, well, sir, you have to come get your son. We can't house your son here. What do you expect us to do with your son? Okay, we hear you

EARLINE BUDD:

saying that your son is out of control because he doesn't listen to you. He's dressing up like a girl and all that. So what are you asking us to do? So he said, well hold on, let me ask my supervisor something. I remember him asking the other guy. Then he went back to the phone and he asked my father, are you saying that your son is outta control? I heard him say back to my father, oh, well, if your son is outta control we could put him in the pens program,

EARLINE BUDD:

people in need of supervision for young people. He said, would you want that to happen, sir? Okay. Yeah. He said, it's just gonna be a year. He'll be committed for a year. He'll be going to Maple Glen. Oh my God. I kept looking at the man, I kept saying, what is he talking about? Committed and going to Maple Glen. He came back over and say, Budd, you going to the receiving home for a few days and then they gonna get you processed

EARLINE BUDD:

and then you're gonna ride the van down to Maple Glen. You're going in a program called the Pens Program because your father said you're outta control and therefore the system has to admit you into the system. And I said, no, but I'm not outta control. And he said, but you are, you won't listen to them. I said, because I dress different? And he say for right now, that's the issue. Yes. So I was at the receiving home with the boys

EARLINE BUDD:

and they ended up putting me in a separate cage. I call it a cage, but lockup by myself. Finally, the van did come a few days later. They fed us and everything and then they say, Budd, get ready to go. The van is here. I'm telling you, it seemed like I was going out of the country and I was only going to Maple Glen, which was down in Laurel, Maryland. When I got there,

EARLINE BUDD:

I had to go through admissions, answer questions and all that. The counselor that was admitting me was telling me, you're gonna have to do something about this because you are not a girl. This is what has got you in trouble. You are not a girl.

NIX MENDY:

Can I interrupt for a second? Because I just wanna kind of roll back to a couple of things that you said before we get to like this part of your story, if that's okay.

EARLINE BUDD:

Yes.

NIX MENDY:

Earlier you mentioned that you had this first sexual experience with multiple people, and I kind of wanna hold space for the fact that like a lot of LGBTQ people are specifically treated as sexual objects instead of the fullness of who they are as peaceful, especially in their first sexual experiences. I was wondering how you sort of held this ecstatic feeling of the actual

NIX MENDY:

experience itself with kind of like the day-to-day reality of being in your elementary school and being sort of overlooked or underestimated by the people around you or treated to be sort of like lesser than the people around you. How did you kind of hold those two things together?

EARLINE BUDD:

Well, for me, I always say ahead of the ball so, well, let me be completely honest.

EARLINE BUDD:

I did feel a sense of violation for real, in terms of what was happening to me. But I also knew that I felt like I had asked for some of it in terms of the encounter. I felt like I had, by me saying I was in love with Michael and then some of the other guys kind of felt like -- To them it was a joke. Let me be real, it was a joke. But I did feel like, at one point

EARLINE BUDD:

when they were pulling my pants down, stuff like that, I said, oh my god, no, stop. So there was a moment of feeling violated.

NIX MENDY:

Mm-Hmm. .

EARLINE BUDD:

But at some point I became comfortable with, I believe it's my sexuality and my attraction to boys at that time -- tot men, boys, because that's what they were -- so I took it. It didn't bother me. I just

EARLINE BUDD:

felt like I've had my first experience and after that I just felt like there was more to come. In school, after I completely came out, I had no issues with being able to get along with people. In fact, they used to call me the smartest in the class and the girls in the guys, they start adapting to me. I felt like being myself, as

EARLINE BUDD:

I say, my authentic self, it helped me to be able to get through high school as well. Because I most certainly wore female clothes in high school as well.

NIX MENDY:

Great. Speaking to the same theme of being underestimated by the people around you, I know you've also mentioned previously that you had reached out to

NIX MENDY:

the congressman about coming to your school and like your principal didn't believe that that was ever gonna happen. I was wondering if you could walk us through that sort of first stab at activism in elementary school .

EARLINE BUDD:

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. That was my first experience in terms of what I considered to be activism. What happened is each student had to come up with a project. I remember it clearly.

EARLINE BUDD:

We had to come up with a project and then you had to set up a time to read it, implement it or what have you. That time was when everybody had to be in the auditorium and you could come up and read your paper, your project or what have you. Two days before, what had happened, what the prior week working on my project, I wrote a letter

EARLINE BUDD:

and I was familiar a little bit with, had heard the name Congressman Walter Fauntroy. I wrote a letter and I got it mailed and it got there and then there was a response, I'm trying to remember how they got to me. I think they got through me to my parents and I got confirmation that they said the congressman was coming to the school

EARLINE BUDD:

on the day of the event where everybody had to read their projects or bring in someone special. Yeah. I told my teacher and the principal and they were like, please, Budd, don't do that, please. We understand the project is not to fantasize. And I say fantasize who? I say the congressman's coming, did you hear me?

EARLINE BUDD:

And the teacher was like, Budd, please come back with something a little more because we can't do this. The day before the event, someone from the congressman's office reached out to the school and they confirmed that they had communicated with one Earl Budd that was in school there and wanted the congressman to come and speak. And the congressman had agreed to ,

EARLINE BUDD:

the school was livid. And when I say livid, I mean livid. Oh my God. They got a clean and scrub and oh it was just a mess. So the day of the event, I never forget it. I did not. For that day, my mom and I think my father, my mother and father, I think they came around to the school, Garrison Elementary. But they made me wear black little pants,

EARLINE BUDD:

a white daggone shirt and a little tie. And because I was so mesmerized around the fact that I actually was having somebody important coming to my school, I decided I would put on the clothes of their choice. I put on the clothes, I went there and oh, they had the flag out the front of the building. It was just a mess. The kids were laughing because they were saying, ain't nobody coming. They making like somebody coming.

EARLINE BUDD:

Then the car pulled up and he had like someone to escort and secretary with him. He came up the stairs. I was standing there and he said, you must be lil Budd. I said, I'm not lil Budd. He said, "Well, I'm Congressman Walter Fauntroy, thank you for inviting me." I said, "Oh, thank you Congressman Fauntroy." I said, "I am so happy that you are here and this is my principal and this is my teacher." And they said, "Oh my God, Congressman, you are just so -- Come this way,

EARLINE BUDD:

we want to take you in for refreshments and then we'll take you into the main auditorium." Then they told me, you going back in auditorium. I said, what? I'm the one who brought him here, I want refreshments too. But they did call me up on the stage to recognize that I, in fact, was one of the first students to invite a dignitary to the school and got him to come. That was my first whole thing with activism.

EARLINE BUDD:

I think it kind of pivoted going further in life how I became an activist.

NIX MENDY:

Great. Related to your early activism, I was wondering if you could talk about your experiences at the skating rink and sort of like the discrimination that you faced there and how you dealt with that.

EARLINE BUDD:

Oh my goodness. That is

EARLINE BUDD:

another part of my history that stands out most for me about the skating rink. So the Kalorama Rose skating rink, I used to attend with other LBGT folks. We used to go there on like Thursday, I wanna say Thursday and Saturday, like two or three days a week. We all would meet up and that was the one place we felt like we could come and just kind of enjoy ourselves skating and the transgender, the girls would

EARLINE BUDD:

had the hairs flowing and all that. It is a really, really, really nice place. They had what was called an organ player, someone who played the organ. His name was Van. He used to play the organ music. It was certain music that we all would get up on the floor and really express ourselves with. And I mean, we would skate in twos, we skate in threes sometimes even in like four or fives.

EARLINE BUDD:

At that point, I was kind of high fashion. This is in my teens. I used to dress and wear hats and coats and boots matching and all that. At some point, and we were going into the male bathroom. We didn't have any issue with it. The director, the owner of the skating rink, at some point had got a whisk that we were in the bathrooms

EARLINE BUDD:

dressed up as female. I was the one person he targeted. His name was Charles Hawkins. I remember him coming into the bathroom and asking to speak with me. I walked out of the bathroom and I said, yes, Mr. Hawkins. He said, look, I gotta ask you something. I said, yes. He say, what do you get from coming in here like that?

EARLINE BUDD:

I said, excuse me. He said, what do you get from coming into my skating rink like that, dressed up like a girl. He said, there are kids and stuff that come here. They shouldn't be exposed to that. I said, exposed to what? He said, you dressed up like a girl. What you need to do is come in here, dress based on what your sex is, and do that other stuff out there in the street. I'm not gonna

EARLINE BUDD:

allow you to keep coming like that. You are the most outlandish one. You dress all these hats and blonde hair and all that and we are just not having it. I said, but what are you telling me? I can't come here no more? He said, until you decide to come dressed like you're supposed to, don't come anymore and you can leave now. Security's gonna take you out. Security escorted me out. I was crying. My friends came outside and they was like -- At that point they were saying Earline,

EARLINE BUDD:

because at that point my name was Earline. They said, Earline, oh my God, did he put you out? Oh my God, what are you going to do? I said, I don't know. I said, I heard it's someplace you can file a complaint though and say something like when people do that to you, I don't know. I'm gonna find out. The next day I remember I had asked Dee Carey and Dee Carey had directed me to

EARLINE BUDD:

the Human Rights Campaign. The Human Rights Campaign. Yeah, the Office of Human Rights. Let me get it correct, the Office of Human Rights. I went down there, they were on 4th Street Northwest. I remember it. I was young, but I went there and I got on the elevator, went upstairs, they directed me where to go to. A lady named Johnny Rice was the intake person. She told me, sit down. She said, tell me a little bit about

EARLINE BUDD:

what's going on with you. I was trying to get it out, but I was so emotional about what had happened to me. And she said, calm down. Calm down. She say, so are you saying that someone put you out of a public accommodation or something? I said, the skating rink where I always was going for a long time, but when I started really dressing, the owner told me I couldn't come there anymore. She saying, did he say why?

EARLINE BUDD:

I say, he said, because my sex is male and I should be dressing as male. She said, well, that is against the law. She said, I'm here to tell you it's against the law and we can help you with that. Would you like help with it? And I said, yes. Then she said, okay, I'm gonna fill out the complaint and all I need you to do is sign it, then we're gonna start the investigation phase of it where we will investigate it and get back with you.

EARLINE BUDD:

Then we have what's called the mediation phase where you sit down and try to mediate. I said, so I'm gonna have to sit with Mr. Hawkins, and she said, at some point, yes, absolutely, you're the complainant and he's the person that you are complaining against. Then she said, well, give us about a week. I gave them a week and they called me back in less than a week. Johnny Rice said, Ms. Budd,

EARLINE BUDD:

we are ready to move forward calling Mr. Hawkins and make him aware that we are representing you. He may come with attorney if he wishes, but you have a legitimate case of discrimination based on your sexual orientation. I said, oh, really? I wasn't thinking about no money or nothing. But anyhow, they called Mr. Hawkins and he came with his attorney. He came with an attorney.

EARLINE BUDD:

I had the officer of human rights representing me. During the course of it, it was so quick that it happened Ms. Rice, Johnny Rice said to Mr. Hawkins, remembering correctly why you're here, Mr. Hawkins, Ms. Budd has filed a complaint against you that you denied her access to your skating rink. Then she said, how say you? And he said, what do you mean, how say me?

EARLINE BUDD:

She said, what do you have to say? Or would your attorney speak for you? He said, I don't need my attorney to speak for me. Yes. I told that dude that he needs to come dressed like he was born a male and don't come in here dressed up like no girl, because there's little kids and stuff in there, and that's a bad impression on these kids. She said, at this point, Mr. Hawkins, I need to advise you of your rights

EARLINE BUDD:

and cost you anything you say can be used against you. Then he said, he asked the lady, are you serious y'all taking his side? And she said, it's not about sides, it's about the law. So you had violated the law. So then at that point, his attorney asked him asked Ms. Rice, can you give us 15 minutes? Can we step out for a minute? And my understanding for Ms. Rice was that

EARLINE BUDD:

the attorney was having him step out so he could let him know how serious this was, that this was a real complaint and that he could find himself -- I mean, just multiple things could happen. Ms. Rice said, now that we have ruled in your favor that there is discrimination, Ms. Budd would you like? I said, what? I just want him to apologize. She said, oh, you want just a letter of apology?

EARLINE BUDD:

Nothing monetary. I said, what you mean monetary? She said, you have no monetary, nothing in mind. I said, no. So she said, well, the minimum was 400, I think it's $400 that one could get, and a letter of apology if he agrees to that. So his attorney came back in and we mediated. Mr. Hawkins looked at me. He made the worst faces. You would've thought I was the worst person in the world. His attorney spoke for him

EARLINE BUDD:

after that and said to me, Miss Budd, I just want to apologize on behalf of the Colorado skating rink, and Mr. Hawkins, the intent was never to violate any of your rights. Mr. Hawkins was speaking from a personal, and he apologizes for that. And as such, he has agreed to give you a sum of $400. And now my eyes blew up.

EARLINE BUDD:

Back in those days, $400 is a lot of money. I said, $400? Me? Said yes. So Ms. Rice said, now, Miss Budd, if you're not satisfied with that, we can step out and go back and mediate a little more. And then I said, no. I said, long as I know I can go back to the skating rink, I'll be okay. And then Mr. Hawkins looked at me and said, I guess I don't have no choice,

EARLINE BUDD:

my hands are tied. And I said, oh, wow. I said, so that's this letter of apology. And she said, no, you're gonna get a letter of apology. And to this day, I don't know what happened to it. I did get one, but it's kind of said like they didn't really take full responsibility for it. But that they were apologizing for any feelings that I may have had. As such,

EARLINE BUDD:

you also find a check and closing amount of $400. That was the first case. Yes.

NIX MENDY:

Well, I think we can probably at this point flip back to you essentially getting put away in like this year program. Because I think that sort of sets the scene for some of the other things that have happened.

EARLINE BUDD:

Well, that was the Maple Glen. The Maple Glen where I was. And while I was in Maple Glen, there were staff members who were betting that they could change me from being who I was in terms of female to male or what have you. So they decided, and that's the only place that happened -- At Maple Glen they had female and males there.

EARLINE BUDD:

They had a female name Mosette Daughtry, I'll never forget her. She was known as the compound, whatever, I don't want to say 'wh' whatever, but anyhow, she went with a lot of guys, had sex with a lot of guys. So, but me and her, we were okay. I never had no real issues with Mosette. But anyhow, a weekend came about and they came to my cottage and got me.

EARLINE BUDD:

I said, will y'all take me? They said, we are locking you down for the weekend. I said, why I gotta be locked down for the weekend and I haven't violated anything. They said, no, we are doing a test. A test. They took me to another cottage and they had a room, they had a bed and everything in there. I think it may have had a radio, I don't remember. But anyhow,

EARLINE BUDD:

they came in and they asked me what I wanted to eat and all that. And I was saying, what I want to eat, what's on the lunch menu? Said, what would you like to eat? So I said, I like a real cheeseburger. And do you know they went and got me a cheeseburger for real. Brought it to me. Then about mid evening, one of the officers came to the door and say, Budd, we have some company for you. Company? I said, what company? They don't usually

EARLINE BUDD:

put people in the room together. Lo and behold, it was Mosette, Mosette Daughtry, the compound, whatever. So she came in, she was laughing and looking at bit, I was looking at her too. She says to me, I don't know what to expect. They talking about they gonna pay me. They gonna gimme $50 if I can convert you. I say, girl, you better get a life.

EARLINE BUDD:

She say, it's $50, I'm serious. And she say, and they gonna give us any food, everything, all that. So they closed the door. Then she said, I overheard the guard saying they betting like a hundred dollars that I'm gonna flip you. One was saying he betting a hundred dollars that I can't turn you. So they betting money. So I said, so what you telling me that for?

EARLINE BUDD:

She say, we got to play along. Go along with this. I said, okay, what we gonna do? She said, we gonna cover the door thing up so they can't see in here and then we gonna make noise like we having sex. I said, oh, I'm gonna like that . Oh my God, when I tell you we was cutting up, me and her and I was giving, throw it on me, Mosette, throw it on me, girl. Oh my Lord. Throw it on me.

EARLINE BUDD:

And she was talking about, stop Budd, stop. Oh, you're hurting me, and all that. And then we would stop and then we would take our tops off halfway down and take the thing off the door and they would peep in there. I was giving, oh, you wore me out Mosette, you wore me out so much. And look, at that point, she could get a break and go out. They would let her come out and go and oh yeah, take showers. We could take showers and all that. Then she'd tell me, she heard them saying,

EARLINE BUDD:

oh something. I'm saying I doubled my bet because I knew it was gonna happen. She put 'em back in there, put 'em back in there, and this gonna be it when she finished and we opened the door, it's gonna be Earl Budd. So she came back in and she told me they had doubled the bet and told they was gonna add like, I think like $25 more for her. She said, I'm gonna give you some money too off of mines. I said, okay. When the weekend

EARLINE BUDD:

was over and after we had finished doing all of our plays and all the stuff we did, they opened the door and we came out and then I was trying to do my little pimping. I'll never forget it. It was so odd. I was doing my little boy pimp when they was looking, they say, Hey, what's up? You all right, Budd? I said, yeah man, I'm all right. What's up with y'all? He said, oh yes. Oh man, pay me bro.

EARLINE BUDD:

Pay me. So they paid her, gave her her money, she gave me some change. Then all of a sudden I looked at them officers and I said, got y'all, got you . I say, Earline is back . We had played that. But it's amazing to think that when you're in an institution like Maple Glen, that they would do that. It was almost like I was a toy

EARLINE BUDD:

and they were playing with me. But I didn't get any hurt from that. Then from there, the incarceration, it continued on and on and on. I can say that I left only because every year that they would call my father, they would say, Mr. Budd, it's time to pick your son up. He would say, is he still like he was? They say, well, for all purposes

EARLINE BUDD:

he hasn't changed. And he say, well I'm not coming to get him. They say, so what are we supposed to do with your son? You still saying he's outta control? He say, Yes, he's outta control. We'll send him to Cedar Knoll. Cedar Knoll, I went to that program and I now remember that one was two years. That's where I ended up taking up typing and doing clerical stuff and all that because I was aging. I was about 16,

EARLINE BUDD:

I wanna say 16 or 17. The whole juvenile thing went on until Evelyn Pickett, names stick with me when they mean something to me. Her name was Evelyn Pickett. She was a social worker. She came to me to talk about discharge. She said, so she said, Budd, she said, what would you prefer to be called? I say, Earline.

EARLINE BUDD:

She said, we can't do that. Can I call you, Budd? I said, yes. She said, why are you here? And I said, because I'm different. She said, you've been incarcerated for the last three years of your life because you're different. I said, yes. She said, that is not a crime. She said, so what's supposed to be happening with you now? I'm your case manager, your social worker, and I'm trying to get you discharged. Are you going to tell me that when

EARLINE BUDD:

I call your father that he's gonna say he won't accept you? I looked at her and I said, yes ma'am. He is gonna say that as long as you tell him that I haven't changed. She says, it's not my position to say whether you've changed or not. She called my father and he asked her the question. I was right there looking at her and she said, Mr. Budd, we are not gonna play these games. We don't lock people up because they're different

EARLINE BUDD:

because they're gay, transgender or whatever. You need to come get your son. Even if you don't come get him, he will be delivered to your front door. And my father said, well, he won't get in here if he's not ... I heard him telling her if he to change, he's not getting in here. So they got me on the van, gave me my little bag of clothes and took me to 13th and T where I lived.

EARLINE BUDD:

The van pulled up. I'll never forget, I went to the door, knocked on the door. One of my younger sisters answered the door. And she said, oh my god, daddy, daddy. He back. He back. And he said, who's back Shorty down here? So then he asked her, said, has he changed? So she said, are you still a faggy? You're not still a faggy, are you? I said, girl, I will slap you. Don't say that. Then she spit on me and I

EARLINE BUDD:

slapped her. She screamed and hollered, daddy, he slapped me. He slapped me. And that was when my father came down the stairs with a hammer and chased me the 14th. I'll never forget it. And there he essentially assaulted me. He hit me in the head with the hammer. And I don't think I've ever been completely right since then. But some people jumped on him and said, don't do that. Don't hit your child like that. Why are you hitting your child with a hammer? And he said, he needs to learn.

EARLINE BUDD:

He needs to know. That was my first night of being actually out on the street. And that takes me into the history of talking about the Gay Lesbian Activist Alliance, GLAA, ran by Dr. Frank Kameny and Jeff Levy. How I knew that was, I'd heard that there was a group of people

EARLINE BUDD:

that gathered down on 17th Street and I could possibly go there and get some food and maybe find safe haven. Safe haven as in having some place to stay, because I didn't have no place. I was homeless on the street and I was about -- I want to say about 17, somewhere in there, 17, 18. I went there, went up the stairs and I saw the sign saying GLAA meeting in progress. I went there, I just sat in the back and I saw the guys predominantly white,

EARLINE BUDD:

older fellows, and they were in the back and up the front. They were crying and telling their stories. I was looking at 'em, I was saying, wow. One of them actually came -- They took a break, that's what it was. He came to the back and he said, what's your name? I say Shorty, I like Earline. He says, Earline, shorty

EARLINE BUDD:

you are a little girl, right? I said, no, I'm a little boy. He said, what I couldn't have told with your tennis shoes, your little skirt on. I said, thank you. He said, and how old are you? I think at that time I was about 16. Then he asked me, he said, can I ask you, so why are you here? Because this is for adults. I said, my father put me out because I dress like this. He said, oh my goodness,

EARLINE BUDD:

let me call Frank Kameny over. Frank Kameny was the world renowned civic action ... I didn't know who I was talking to at that time, let me be real. He came over and he said, Hey, what's up, cutie? He said, so I hear you having some problem with your family. We may try to see if we can reach out and help you with that, but we gonna put you in a room for tonight. I said, thank you. He said, you can eat back here while we finish

EARLINE BUDD:

our group up. Then he said, my name is Frank Kameny. And I said, okay, Frank Kameny. It didn't mean nothing to me. At some point what happened is we became really close and I ended up adopting him as my father. I really didn't know much about him at that time until I started hearing about activism and transgender.

EARLINE BUDD:

He had been in the service, excuse me, and he had fought for our rights. I said, wow, my father is popular. I went there for a while, but then I didn't feel comfortable because I didn't see anybody else like me dressed like a female. I went to 9th and 0 and 7th and 0, and that's where I met a lot of older

EARLINE BUDD:

transgender individuals. Some were transgender, some were transvestite, meaning that they only wore clothes on the weekends and all that, but they were still in relationships with men. I found one of 'em named Angel and she took me in and she was a chef at a restaurant down on 21st Street. She was telling me, she was saying, well,

EARLINE BUDD:

as you're getting older, eventually you're gonna have to work. But she said, right now we gotta figure out how to help you because you are just a teenage. I say, I know, but I don't have no place to go. My father's not taking me back in. Believe it or not, I stayed with her for a few years until I think I was about maybe 19 at the Newport West Apartments. Then when I became 19,

EARLINE BUDD:

I never forget it, she actually got me a job working where she was working or he was working at this restaurant, lavish restaurant. I was a dishwasher and things went on and on. From there I met more and more people like myself. I started to become more acclimated to being transgender because that was a language that was starting to be used at that time.

EARLINE BUDD:

I always say that when we talked about transgender, people ask, where did transgender come from? It's a white terminology that was given to us. We as individuals who were African American, mostly considered ourselves gay. That's the whole history with the youth incarceration. Then finally meeting the GLAA group and then going from there

EARLINE BUDD:

to meeting Angel, who was David Hughes. I call him my stepmom, Sanchez, and that's why I get my last nickname from. Because on stage, if you look at YouTube, you'll see me performing back in the years, and my name was Earlina Sanchez. Now I just call myself Earline Budd. But when I'm on stage, it's Earline Sanchez if I ever get back on stage, hopefully.

NIX MENDY:

Earline, I was wondering if you could tell us more, I think at this time period, also, about sort of the climate of HIV and AIDS at the time. I think that it would be interesting to hear if that was something that you were like aware of or were scared of, had any sort of interaction with at this point in time and how that sort of came to be a part of your work.

EARLINE BUDD:

Well, yeah,

EARLINE BUDD:

as I got into my teens, I started hearing about ARC and I think it was in my twenties I start losing friends, friends start dying and it was like, wow. I was crazy. I said, what is going on? Why are people dying like this? But then it was impacting a lot of my close friends that were friends in my circle.

EARLINE BUDD:

Because I was on the street, I had started doing survival sex work and I used to hang on 4th and K, 7th Street, 9th Street, I'd been on all of them. There was a group of guys Alexander Robinson, Jonathan Kirkland and a few others, they were doing outreach to

EARLINE BUDD:

folks in the community that were doing commercial sex work, specifically transgender. What I ended up finding out is that they had an office space in the back alley in the building where we were hanging out at. They recruited me and several other transgenders and some gay guys to be in the program. It was called

EARLINE BUDD:

the -- Let me get it together because my mind wanders sometimes when I start thinking about it. It was a HIV program, but it was like a certification program -- ICAN. It was the Inner City AIDS Network program. They were funded by the DC Department of Health and oh my god, those guys were just everything to me. They took us off the street, put us in hotels,

EARLINE BUDD:

and then they took us through what was like a five to six weeks certification course on becoming a HIV peer specialist. I completed mines and so did several of the others that were in my group. There was a woman, we were going to a club at that time doing outreach, giving out condoms and all that. There was a woman named Rashad, what was her name? I forgot her name. went by me.

EARLINE BUDD:

Anyhow, she was the first woman that was to go over to Kenya to get the kerion treatment that was supposed to be able to cure this disease called AIDS. We fundraise and raise money to help get her over there to do that. But that was my first experience with understanding HIV, understanding also that

EARLINE BUDD:

I was part of a community that was heavily impacted at that time by HIV. What happened was, as far as my getting diagnosis was when I got incarcerated for prostitution. I've been locked up, not once, but several times for prostitution. When I went to the jail, they do a health screening on you. They do labs if

EARLINE BUDD:

you allow them to, and I did. The doctor came back to me, I think it was like the next day or so, and he called me into the doctor's office and he said Budd, I said, yes. He said, I have some news for you. He didn't say bad news. He said, I have some news for you. I said, yes. He says unfortunately your labs came back and we detected HIV in your blood.

EARLINE BUDD:

And I say, what? And then he said yeah, HIV in your blood. I said, oh, okay. So he said, that's all you're gonna say is okay. I said, well, I've been an AIDS peer advocate for some years, and so I have lost a lot of friends. I said, I always feared that one day my number would come and so it's here. He said,

EARLINE BUDD:

so you just accepted? I said, yes. I said, what's next? I mean, medication, whatever. And at that time in those years, they only had AZT and AZT was doing a whammer on some people taking some people outta here. But I took it and I was able to get through it. Sick, sometimes not sick sometimes, but eventually I graduated and they end up getting more medications for HIV

EARLINE BUDD:

like they have today. Combinations and all those kind of things. But I ended up -- It's no secret that I talk about being a returning citizen, meaning that I've been incarcerated before and I did -- My first period was for about, I think three years. Then my last one was like six years, six or seven. I got caught up in some drug stuff and

EARLINE BUDD:

I was in a prison called FCI Schuylkill. I went from FCI Schuylkill to FCI Farrington. When I talk about prison, I don't talk about it in the negative way that you hear a lot of people talking about it, because when I was incarcerated, I actually -- They called me Big Mama. We used to have two microwaves.

EARLINE BUDD:

I used to cook chickens and fish and rice and rice peel off and all that. So it was, for me, it was almost like I wasn't even incarcerated. The only thing was having to go in that cell and they lock you in. But see, I eventually got on a unit called Detail Unit, we stayed out most of the time. And because I typed, what, 80 words a minute, the senior officers

EARLINE BUDD:

used to come and ask me to type reports and stuff like that. The case managers used to ask me if I could type up reports for the parole board and all that. I mean, I guess I'll say my six years wasn't bad. I wanted my freedom. I prayed to God if he let me out, I would do better with my life. And I did have an experience because

EARLINE BUDD:

where I was in Farrington, they had a lot of Muslims and the Muslims had issues with us being transgender or identifying as such, or gay, whatever. Because I was one of the people that resisted them -- Resisted, meaning there was some of them that would find the time to catch you in the shower or something and try to have a sexual

EARLINE BUDD:

encounter with you. I resisted them. But I had one of the guys that was like in charge, like in the superiors of the Muslims came to my cell one night when me and my roommate was in there and I was on the lower bunk and he had took a shower and he came in and he had a knife and he forced himself on me. I thought that was, to me,

EARLINE BUDD:

what I considered to be the most degrading thing that could have ever happened and plus being HIV positive, I knew I couldn't tell him that because he would've killed me. I just prayed, because he says he washed hisself right afterwards, he didn't ejaculate inside me or whatever, that hopefully he did not get infected. When I tell that story and people hear it, they say, Miss Budd,

EARLINE BUDD:

so you had passion, compassion for someone who raped you? And I said, well, I did. I had HIV and I just didn't feel like -- It's not something I want to pass on to anybody else, any other relationships that I did have when I was incarcerated, we always used plastic or condoms, which were not readily available, but you could get them.

NIX MENDY:

Yeah, that's really heavy Earline. But thank you for sharing that with us. I wanna hold space for how heavy that story is. I know it takes a lot of work to get to a compassionate place when that happens to you.

EARLINE BUDD:

Yes, yes. It does. It really does. But for some reason I felt like,

EARLINE BUDD:

like he was the victim. Like he was the victim and I was the perpetrator and that wasn't the case. He was forcing himself on me with a knife and I just had -- It's just a compassion. Then I was taking, by the way, I didn't mention I was taking HIV meds while I was in the federal prison. I had got shingles before, which is one of the things

EARLINE BUDD:

that a lot of people who are positive get. The guys used to ask me, they call HIV to pack, "Big Mama. I know you ain't got that pack." All I would say was -- I never say no, I just would say, you think I got all this weight on and I got the pack ? And they say, yeah, Big Mama ain't got it. She got too much weight on to have it.

EARLINE BUDD:

But lo and behold, that was their ignorance and they didn't know that HIV had no weight limit or whatever. You could be 110 pounds and have HIV. I did my time, I managed to get out successfully and I was transferred from there to what was, now closed, the Hope Village halfway house.

EARLINE BUDD:

That was my first experience of being in a halfway house. Of course, I didn't really have any place else to go at that time. And their requirements were that you simply, you had your own room and that you would do one thing. That is, get up in the morning, make your bed up, make your room is clean, do your chore for the day that's assigned to you and then you go out

EARLINE BUDD:

and seek employment. During my tour, I call it tour duty there at the halfway house, I actually went and got two jobs. At the time when I went and got the jobs, I didn't look as I look today, which you're seeing now, the beautiful nails and the hair and the makeup and all that. I was actually more of male appearance.

EARLINE BUDD:

Once I started making some money, my first couple of checks at the halfway house you had to pay -- What was it called? Commissions off of your checks. I would pay my commission and put some of my money away. But eventually I had enough money for me on my week pass where you could go out for a day. I was able to take money, go and get my hair weaves, get my lashes on,

EARLINE BUDD:

my eyebrows, waxed my nails on and all of that. Then I got me a little outfit too. I came back to the halfway house and I rang the buzzer on the door. I'll never forget it. It was so, so comical to me. The guy that was at the desk looks -- They look at a camera and then they look to see who's at the door. He said, excuse me ma'am

EARLINE BUDD:

we are closed. No more visitors at this time . I just had so much joy in hollering back through the monitor. I say, excuse me, it is Budd. And he was looking, I said, it is Budd, it's me. He said, Earl Budd. I said, yes, hi. He say, man, what is you did to yourself? He said, I'm hitting a buzzer. Come on in.

EARLINE BUDD:

When I came in, my head was flowing. I was this beautiful everything. I was much smaller than I am now, of course too. He looked at me and he said, what happened, man, you can't come in here like that. This is a male halfway house. I said, what do you mean I can't come in here? I said, this is where I have to sleep at for now until my 90 days is up. He said, not like that. I said, yes it is. He said, well I'm gonna have to let the director know,

EARLINE BUDD:

Ms. Brown, I'm gonna have to let her know that we have an incident. I said, what's the incident? A male goes out, come back in, look like a female, that's an incident report. I had to write you up. I said, well, you gonna be doing a lot of writing. So he say, okay, well, going to your room and expect that you gonna have to see Ms. Brown when she get here in the morning. Mr. Cassell and the other senior case counselors and security guys were on duty.

EARLINE BUDD:

They hit what's called a horn, the bullhorn for dinner. I made sure I fixed myself up pretty and everything. I went down to the dining hall down the hill. When I came in the dining hall, the guys was like, man, what the hell, where that girl come from? Said, where that girl came from. I said, it's me, y'all, stop playing. One of the guys said, that's Earl Budd

EARLINE BUDD:

the street in 2120. So he say, damn, you look just like a girl. Damn, you look like a girl. So I said thank you. Mr. Cassell came in and got me and told me, bring my dinner out with me. I say, what? He said, bring your dinner out. You not sitting in there with them like that. He said, you can take your dinner up to your room and eat in your room until Ms. Brown meets with you in the morning. I said, why is that?

EARLINE BUDD:

He said, you on lockdown? I said, on lockdown for what? Being myself. Y'all can't take it. He said, we ain't gonna have to take it. We'll send you back to the feds. I say, well, you have to do what you have to do. So that night me and my roommates and them was talking and they were saying, Budd, when you look like that, a lot of us ain't had no relationship with our girlfriends and stuff and you look like a girl. Some of the dudes may come onto you.

EARLINE BUDD:

I say, but I don't want nobody in here . I said it just like that . I said, I don't want nobody in here. He said, oh, okay, well I want you. I said, no, we're not doing that. We didn't do it, we didn't have relationship. The next morning came, I had to go down to the administrator office and see Ms. Brown and she just, oh, she read me from one head up to the bottom. She said, first and foremost in this room,

EARLINE BUDD:

I'm the only woman in this room. I said, huh, you the only woman in this room? She said, yes. What do you think you are? I say, I'm the other woman in this room. She said, Budd, okay, let's stop playing. This is serious. You have gone out, you've altered your looks to looking like a female and you came from the feds looking as a male. I said, that's because they deprived me of

EARLINE BUDD:

the ability to be myself. She said, well, no, we're not gonna have it and we're gonna have to write you up and may have to send you back. I said, okay, well, you have to do what you have to do. At that time, I was still working and going out and then they allowed me to go to support groups. I went to a support group, ran by Dee Curry over at the HIV Community Coalition. I went there, Dee had a really nice group

EARLINE BUDD:

and the girls were coming out, transgender and all that. I brought up my incident to Dee Cury about what was going on and how they were treating me in the halfway house. Dee Curry is a very educated transgender woman and she has so much to give. And so Dee end up saying, well, guess what? You do not have to go through that. You can go down to the Office of Human Rights

EARLINE BUDD:

or the Human Rights Corporation. She said it's people that will represent you and help you with that. Believe it or not, I did go there and file a complaint there also. When the halfway house found out I had filed an official complaint, they met with me and decided to -- What they said was compromised and meet me halfway. The halfway was,

EARLINE BUDD:

wear small earrings, smaller than these, possibly braiding my hair in a bun up or my hair back if it's permed. Clothing-Wise, they asked if I would just dress and what could be considered as unisex clothing. I didn't find that to be too much. I did it. I managed and I successfully was able to get out of there. Then I ended up taking on a job at

EARLINE BUDD:

HCC in a position of transgender coordinator.

NIX MENDY:

Great. I did wanna loop back to something that did happen in prison, which was sort of like starting the reconciliation with your father and receiving money orders from his girlfriend. So I wonder if we can also kind of loop back to that. I know that that's a heavy story for you, but I do think that it's important to add in here as well.

EARLINE BUDD:

Wow. Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy. So my father, the hard man that he was, so mom had passed on before I went and I got incarcerated. While I was incarcerated in FCI Farrington, somehow I started receiving money orders, like $10 here, $5 there. But they were coming every week and they would be marked

EARLINE BUDD:

E. Budd and then it would have, I guess it was his girl, I found it to be his girlfriend's name on it. My father was illiterate. He never got the chance to get the education that he needed because he and my mother met at an early age and they had kids at an early age. I found out that the money orders were coming from him. I finally got to talk to him on the phone

EARLINE BUDD:

and he was at a senior citizen building in Southeast DC And so he asked me, when you get out, will you come see me? And I said, are you sure you want me to come see you? And I was saying that from my past history of how abusive he was to me. And he said, yes, I want to see you. I said, okay, well, daddy, I should be getting out in about a month.

EARLINE BUDD:

He said, okay, your next money order will have my address in there. I said, okay. I was staying with, I remember, a girlfriend of mine's, one of my best friends named Rhonda Stewart. She allowed me to transition to her house because you had to have someplace to stay. But since I was working two jobs, I was able to pay her rent and she rented me a room in her house.

EARLINE BUDD:

I didn't go that first week to see daddy. It was like the second week or so. I remember I had started doing funeral arrangements and other things and I did my first funeral with capital mortuary of a Francis Damico. She was a transgender woman who died. Had no family, all her family had died and everybody was reaching out to me when I got outta incarceration as if I was a savior.

EARLINE BUDD:

And they were saying, Miss Budd, you gotta do something. Francis' body is still over the medical examiner. I was able to raise money to get the funeral home to agree to do the service for free. Then there was a woman named Dr. Patricia Hawkins, who donated financially to the flowers and stuff. We got ministers and the Washington Post and one of the news stations covered the service

EARLINE BUDD:

and they called it Earline Budd, the activist, funeral director. And I said, no, I'm not a funeral director. I'm just someone that's helping someone. After I did that, somehow my daddy had found out about it and heard of it. When I met with him that second week, he just told me, asked me, would I like something to drink

EARLINE BUDD:

or what have you. Then he said, have a seat. He was in a cozy little apartment, old fashioned, a lot of pictures and cluttered, we called it back in the days, like my house. I said, daddy, why did you call me here to see you? And then he said, I just wanted to talk to you. I was sending you money orders through my girlfriend. I said, yes, daddy.

EARLINE BUDD:

He said, when, when your mother was dying, and it's something I never told you or got to tell you, her last words was to me was Doc, learn to love him. He's our child, he's all we have. When he said that to me, I immediately became just overwhelmed. I said, so all these years, daddy,

EARLINE BUDD:

you've held onto that, that mama said that. He said, yes. He said, but what I wanted to tell you also is that I love you as well. Hearing him say that to me, oh my God, that he loved me. Oh God, it was just -- And I just looked at him. I said, daddy, don't do that, please. I said, daddy, where is this coming from? Then

EARLINE BUDD:

compounded on that, he hit me with, do you mind being my beneficiary if something happens to me? I said, hold on daddy, hold on. You hit me with too much what's going on now? And he said, nothing, I just want you to be my beneficiary. I saw something on TV or whatever that you do funerals and I know that you would make sure I'm put away well. I don't have that much, but I would like a nice

EARLINE BUDD:

home going. I said, okay, if that day came, I said, it's not gonna come now. He say, no, I want you to ride up to the casino with me. We went to Bingo together. I mean I remember the bus pulling up many times. I'm sorry. All I can say is I just learned, I just love my father so much.

EARLINE BUDD:

I love that man as if he was my mother. He never told me that he was sick. But his doctor called me from Greater Southeast Community Hospital and he said to me, can you come over and talk to me? And I said, yes. He said, your father asked me to talk things through with you in regards to him because

EARLINE BUDD:

there's some stuff going on. When I went to the hospital, he said, we need to do some tests on your daddy because your daddy's blood is coming out black. He said, we need to do a bone marrow. I said, okay. I gave him permission in less than two to three days. He called me and he said to me,

EARLINE BUDD:

the tests are back and we've confirmed that your father has terminal cancer all through his body. His name was Dr. Zenobia. He said, we ask now that you ask the family to please come and have your final moments with your father. He said, within 78 hours we predict that your dad will expire.

EARLINE BUDD:

And I said, please, this can't be true. It just can't be true. I was on the board of Whitman Walker Clinic on their housing board. Give me a second please, I'm sorry. I was on Whitman Walker housing board with Christina and them, and we were having a board meeting and I had told the hospital

EARLINE BUDD:

to call me and I had set a code in my phone that would let me know if my father had expired and believe it or not, on that third day. I was at that board meeting, I was sitting there and I was just about to speak and my phone went off and I screamed, oh my God, you all, to all the board members, I said, my dad, he just died. They say, what?

EARLINE BUDD:

Where did you get that from Ms. Budd? I said, my dad is terminally ill, which I did not share with you all. I put a code in my phone for the hospital to contact me. I was asked to be excused now so I can go and call the hospital, call my cousin and go take care of business. I called my cousin, we went to the hospital and they had prepared my dad and cleaned him up and

EARLINE BUDD:

I just sat there with him and rubbed his face and just talked with him. I think I'm glad to know I can submit a picture of my daddy. He's a little short man. You would never think that he was red my other sister that died, Mabel, she was the complexion of my father. I was complexion of my mother. The little, short, red man and there he laid and I looked at him and I said, daddy,

EARLINE BUDD:

I just love you so much and I'm going to miss you so much. I told my friends, I said, I can't believe I'm saying these things to a man that some would've said caused you to be homeless and get HIV and all that. But I never saw it that way. I don't see it that way. What I learned being transgender and senior transgender is that

EARLINE BUDD:

a lot of families don't mean to discriminate or just treat us the way they treat us. A lot of them just simply don't understand. To me that understanding is that compassion that we need being transgender. I had it with my mom. I didn't say that, but me and my mom, we came to bear ...

EARLINE BUDD:

She was okay. She was okay. My grandparents were not okay. That was another story with the shotgun and all that. But anyhow, mama, she left this world loving me and calling me Earline. My father was still kind of stagnated with that. But the fact is, eventually he came around and he was a loving father, compassionate. Even today, still, I say, I'm gonna

EARLINE BUDD:

miss him. I want to be buried near where he is at Mt Olive cemetery. Not far from where I'm here at right now. But losing him was like losing a limb. I can only tell you, which again, I'll submit some pictures. You would've thought he was a president. He had people that came, a lot of people that came to his service, but he had so many flowers.

EARLINE BUDD:

But see, a lot of people say, give me my flowers while I'm living. But in this case, because we had such a rocky road, I wanted to make sure I took my daddy out in style. And I'm telling you, I spent money. At that time I was on the Ryan White Planning Council, they sent flowers. The funeral director and I had business together, they sent flowers. I mean, daddy had flowers, a lot of flowers,

EARLINE BUDD:

and he was gorgeous just laying there. I just couldn't believe it. I kept saying, daddy, please get up. When they brought me into church, I almost passed out. I said, please get up. I said, get up. My sisters and them were still alive, they couldn't believe it. They said, oh my god, Earline, you really did all this for daddy? I said, yes. And not only did it for one, just for him, I ended up having to do it for my two other sisters

EARLINE BUDD:

and also my mom when she had passed early on. Woo! that's the heavy part of my life when I start talking about family. I still, today, have -- I have a gay mother, Ms. Jerry Hughes is my gay mother, and she's a transsexual female, Caucasian. People don't believe that I have gravitated

EARLINE BUDD:

towards her because I needed someone because my mom is dead. My mother and father deceased, grandparents on both sides, cousins, everybody's gone except for I have like one niece and one sister and one brother left. I do talk to them on a regular, and me and my brother both are struggling with the same ... He's on dialysis like I am. I guess that's the whole

EARLINE BUDD:

piece around what you asked me about my dad and coming up, but also learning that you can love a father just like you love a mother. And I miss that man. I can say that. I cry because it is tears of joy because I believe that one day I'll join him and be with him too, and with my mama. Thank you.

NIX MENDY:

Thank you. You've done a lot of work in your family to give people the home going that they deserve. You've also done a lot of work to give like transgender people in your community the home goings that they deserve regardless of whether they have family or community or not. I was wondering how you sort of move through those struggles, like that's so much to carry and I'm wondering how you find the space

NIX MENDY:

to continue to help people along when you still have to carry that yourself. Yes.

EARLINE BUDD:

All I can say is that I'm constantly asked that question and I tell people often that I believe it is my faith and my belief in God that he gives me each day that he gives me to do what I do. I believe I was put here to do just what I do, and that is

EARLINE BUDD:

to help to try to save lives. I can tell you that I've done over 400-some funerals and it has been hard. I can tell you I'm one of the people at each one of those funerals that take it so hard. At the end, people always ask me, Miss Budd, why do you keep doing them if you know that you're gonna just hyperventilate so much? I mean, I literally

EARLINE BUDD:

once or twice have almost passed out. One time they had to call the ambulance to get me. I tell people what I have learned over time and seen is when I see that casket, those beautiful flowers and the music and the singing, and I'm the person that put all this together, I see myself. I see myself, and I know that one day I will have to travel that road.

EARLINE BUDD:

I often ask myself, how will it be for Earline Budd? People just say, Miss Budd, there won't be a church big enough to hold you and to hold the people that will come out. But that's not what I do this work for. When you all asked about doing this interview with me, I told you I do it because I just want to be able to send a message to somebody else that there is hope,

EARLINE BUDD:

someone that's in despair, that's struggling with this sexual identity, going through what I went through and hopefully don't ever have to go through it. I don't know how many things I could have did different in my life to get here because I believe that many of the things that I went through have made me the person that I am today, the activist that I am today.