MASON FUNK:

Start off by stating and spelling your first and last name.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Okay. Stephan Thorne, S-T-E-P-H-A-N T-H-O-R-N-E.

MASON FUNK:

Okey-Dokey. And you typically go by Stephan or Steph or both?

STEPHAN THORNE:

Both. Steph, I guess is mostly people who know me.

MASON FUNK:

Gotcha. Okay. And please tell us the date and place of your birth.

STEPHAN THORNE:

September 2nd, 1954

STEPHAN THORNE:

Hillsboro, Oregon.

MASON FUNK:

Okay. I do know that you did most of your growing up in Nebraska, so briefly tell me how you and your family presumably got from Oregon to Nebraska, or how you got from Oregon.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Well, my mother's family were Lincolnites, my maternal grandparents. So my mother grew up in Lincoln and was from there. Then she met my dad who was in the military and they moved out

STEPHAN THORNE:

to Oregon where his parents had a farm. I don't know at what time -- I think they must have been in Nebraska, because he also went to the same high school that my mother went to, I think. Although he was a little younger than she was. So my mother left my dad, she had my sister from her first marriage and my father adopted my sister

STEPHAN THORNE:

and then I was born. We were in Oregon. Then my mother moved us, both of her kids, back to Lincoln, Nebraska, where her parents were. So I grew up in Lincoln. When I moved out of the house at 16, I moved to Omaha. Then I moved back to Lincoln, back and forth.

MASON FUNK:

Okay. We'll get there. Give me just

MASON FUNK:

a simple, brief portrait of your childhood, like what kind of kid were you? Were you well behaved, were you unruly? What kinds of things did you like doing?

STEPHAN THORNE:

Well as a kid, we didn't have the language for it at the time, I was a trans kid. And I was identified as a tomboy, of course. But I was

STEPHAN THORNE:

kind of a loner, mostly because I was not readily accepted. I kind of wanted to play with the boys, and of course, the boys get to a certain age and they don't want anything to do with a girl. Then I didn't really fit in with the other girls, so I kind of spent a lot of time riding my bike alone. My mother was a single parent and she had to work,

STEPHAN THORNE:

of course, year round. I spent summers, mostly staying with my grandparents, who also lived in Lincoln.

MASON FUNK:

Would you say your childhood - Do you remember feeling lonely, like a little marginalized or alienated?

STEPHAN THORNE:

Yeah, I felt marginalized and probably a little alienated, maybe not extremely, but somewhat.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I definitely knew that there was a way that I didn't fit in. But my childhood was happy. I mean, it wasn't terribly stressful. Even though my mother -- Let's say I had a stepfather from about four years or five years to eight, and he basically treated me kindly, although

STEPHAN THORNE:

a male relative of his molested me when I was seven, so that was a childhood situation. But I think that it was handled really well. My mother believed me and I never saw him again. I think the trauma was really minimized because it was handled the way it was. So, my childhood was okay. I had maternal grandparents. I did

STEPHAN THORNE:

some fun activities. I spent probably a little more time alone than most kids, but I was okay with that. I adapted. Yeah.

MASON FUNK:

Yeah. Okay. What prompted your decision, at 15, to come out?

STEPHAN THORNE:

Well, when I was 15, I found a book. I remember the author's name, Jess Stearn, but I don't remember the name of the ... Oh, I think it was called The Grapevine. It was a nonfiction book

STEPHAN THORNE:

about the lesbian community, probably in the 60s, 50s, maybe 60s. I realized when I was reading the book, that the things that I was experiencing in my puberty and the attractions to girls and my lack of interest in boys, it all made sense, and that's what I was. My sister had a gay friend, a male friend

STEPHAN THORNE:

who happened to be a hairdresser and happened to be somewhat of a flaming queen. He always wore makeup and he had his nails long and painted. He was obviously gay and absolutely comfortable with it, even in Lincoln, Nebraska. My sister knew him. She was seven years older than I was. I reached out to him and asked him to get together with me. Luckily, he said yes,

STEPHAN THORNE:

even though I was this little sister of a friend of his. I told him that I was like him, basically. I remember at the time feeling like a physical weight lifted off of my shoulders when I told him. I said, well, where can I meet other women? There were no gay bars in Lincoln. The closest city that had a gay bar was Omaha. That's about 60 miles away from Lincoln.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I said, "When can we go?" I had my learner's permit, my drivers learner's permit, and he and I drove to Omaha the following weekend. I think it was on a Saturday night. We went to the gay bar, which was called The Cave. There were two gay bars in Omaha, The Cave and The Diamond, they were across the street from each other. The Cave was where most people went. The Diamond was called the wrinkle room because that's where all of

STEPHAN THORNE:

the older gay men sat and drank. It didn't have a dance floor. The Cave had a dance floor and both men and women, there were no separate bars for men and women really. I snuck into the bar. I don't remember exactly how, I'm sure I just kind of went in with a crowd of people. I was so nervous and I did not even approach the bar, let alone try to order or ask for even a glass of water.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I did that when I was 15 and continued from that weekend forward. I continued going to the bar and not necessarily with Rick, my sister's friend. But I remember that first night I went, I danced with a woman, and I'm sure that I was absolutely trembling. I think it was a slow dance and I'm quite sure she could feel it, but she was very nice.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I left the bar and walked out and passed out in the alleyway. I think from stress. And that was that. I started going to the bar regularly. I got myself a fake ID when I turned 16. I turned 16 and went in and got my own driver's license. Four days later, I wore a wig and sunglasses, went into the same office and got a driver's license in the name

STEPHAN THORNE:

of this other young woman who was older than I was. Then I was able to use the fake driver's license to get into the bar.

MASON FUNK:

You got your driver's license with a wig, nothing. You need to wear the wig when you went into the bar?

STEPHAN THORNE:

Well, no, because there were no photos. It was 1970 in Nebraska, no photo IDs. Just the name and the date of birth and the number, I don't remember. Yeah.

MASON FUNK:

Tell me a bit more about Rick. Do you remember if you literally said, "I'm like you"? Because for a young lesbian too,

MASON FUNK:

you might think you wanted to find another lesbian to come out to, but you come out to Rick. So you understood that you both essentially liked people of the same gender. Do you remember any more details about that conversation? Mention Rick by name.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I talked to Rick and I don't recall if I said "I'm like you", or "I'm the same as you". It was something very close to that. He was not

STEPHAN THORNE:

particularly surprised. He was very nice and gave me some basic information. Like I said, he went with me to the bar and then after that, I was able to meet some women through the bar. Some of those women that were at the bar lived in Lincoln. Some of them lived in Omaha, of course, and other places. But that was my entry into

STEPHAN THORNE:

a broader community.

MASON FUNK:

That community sounds like it became a supportive, almost like a second family to you, like that. Who was in this community? You mentioned gay men. You mentioned some sort of street queens.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Yeah. There had recently been an instance, in Lincoln, with one of the students at the university, one of the female students, her parents discovered that she was involved with a slightly older woman.

STEPHAN THORNE:

She was not 21 years of age, she was younger. And the women in the community, of course, heard about this because she was arrested. I don't know if the family was suing, I don't recall. It was just before I came out, so I wasn't really exposed to it, but I had women talk to me about it and understood that the women in the community wanted to be really cautious. I, of course, lied about my age, but I could only lie so much

STEPHAN THORNE:

to have it seem reasonable. Although I guess I was using an ID, trying to get people to believe I was 21, but it worked. The women were somewhat withdrawn and didn't really necessarily feel completely comfortable with me. But the gay men, I was able to meet younger gay men. There seemed to be more of them. It seemed to be really

STEPHAN THORNE:

unusual for a lesbian to come out in your teen years, but it was more common for the gay boys to come out in their teen years. I had some of the gay men, some of the Queens. Looking back, I am sure that some of them were trans women, even though they may not have quite identified that way yet. Some of them were probably gay men

STEPHAN THORNE:

who were drag queens, but they were very kind and very accepting and they became my friends. Of course, I did find some young women to become involved with, not until I really was 16.

MASON FUNK:

At what point did you come out to your mom and how did you do that?

STEPHAN THORNE:

Well, I came out to my mother. I don't think I came out to her until I was 16,

STEPHAN THORNE:

until I'd had my birthday, which comes in September. So it wasn't too many months after I had come out, but I'm not positive about the exact timing. It was within the first six months, at the most. We had very different memories, my mother and I, of that first coming out, I very distinctly remember talking to her in our living room and she was supportive and accepted, and

STEPHAN THORNE:

there was no issue. But then she told a story of after I put a gay liberation poster up at my school for the coffee house, every other Sunday we had a gay coffee house in the bottom of a church in Lincoln, because we had no gay bar, and this was a place for gay people to gather, of course we couldn't serve alcohol. It was popcorn and sodas and we played music.

STEPHAN THORNE:

It was a fun thing and I wanted to put up a notice about it at my school, which I did. And then promptly got called into the principal's office. My mother was called to come have a meeting with the principal at my high school. She said that that was the first time that she heard about it -- she said that in later years -- and that it was traumatic for her, that that felt

STEPHAN THORNE:

not safe, not comfortable, but like I said, I'm pretty certain of my own memory. I don't tend to make things up. My mother did occasionally exaggerate or make a few things up. So it went well, I came out to her. One of the things, right after I came out, of course, this was 1970 in Lincoln, Nebraska, the following year after Stonewall in New York.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I came into the community, right when there was a gay man, his name was Joe Cresin. I think he was a university student and he, and some other gay men were starting the Lincoln gay action group, and I volunteered. They asked me to be co-chair because I was the only woman, the only female who came to the meetings. I said, of course. At the same time that was happening, we were organizing. We also organized

STEPHAN THORNE:

a speaker's panel. Usually two of us, sometimes maybe three of us, would go to university classes, we'd go to church groups, basically anybody who would have us, we would go and talk to them about being gay and how we believe that it was okay to be gay. We were striving for our civil rights, and we understood, when I came out, it was against the law to be gay. So we were outlaws

STEPHAN THORNE:

and we didn't really want to be outlaws, we didn't think that was right. We wanted to talk to as many people as we could and educate. Very soon after I started doing it, I invited my mother to come. She'd come to the coffee house, I had invited her to come to the coffee house and she met some of my gay friends. She became this kind of, I wouldn't really call her a second mother to any of them, but she was a parent of one of their friends

STEPHAN THORNE:

and she was accepting of everyone and was kind to them. They immediately loved her. We ended up going on speaking engagements together, which was really powerful at the time, to be talking to groups of people and have your accepting parent with you. I do recall that what she would say in those sessions was that I was her pride and joy.

STEPHAN THORNE:

That really was a significant thing for me to hear. I felt like it was a very significant thing for other people to hear, other parents to hear.

MASON FUNK:

Would other friends of yours kind of come and just want to have conversations with her? Maybe like, how do I come out to my parents? Or why are you so accepting? My parents are so not.

MASON FUNK:

Did anything like that happen?

STEPHAN THORNE:

I don't know if that may have happened privately. I did have one particularly good gay male friend. We became best friends for a while.

MASON FUNK:

So you were saying you don't particularly remember your friends coming and confiding in your mom.

STEPHAN THORNE:

No, but I think that Randy did, I really do. Randy became my best friend. I think he was only a year older than I was, and his parents ...

STEPHAN THORNE:

I'm not sure about his mother because he had a brother who was also gay, an older brother, I think he was two years older, Rick and Randy. I know that he became close with my mother.

MASON FUNK:

It's such a fascinating story with certainly nothing to say, but the discrepancy between the stories, my husband and his mom also have a major discrepancy about his coming out to her, major. And she's a lesbian. I interviewed her and

MASON FUNK:

I asked her the story about when her son came out, thinking that I knew what she was going to say. She told me [crosstalk].

STEPHAN THORNE:

Totally different story. It was hilarious. I mean, I couldn't sway my mother. No. I learned it. "I felt like I'd been hit in the stomach with a baseball bat," that's what she said to me, at the school meeting.

MASON FUNK:

Do you think it was something to do with just the fact that it was happening in a school setting?

STEPHAN THORNE:

I think so.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I think that she also did not want them to know that she knew. That just now dawned on me. Frankly, I think she wanted to act surprised. So she may have changed that story in her own mind. I think if that had happened, I don't think the way she handled my school issues, I don't think that would have gone nearly as well.

MASON FUNK:

So tell me kind of as a standalone story,

MASON FUNK:

what happened as a result of you being called into the principal's office?

STEPHAN THORNE:

Okay. So after being called into the principal's office,

MASON FUNK:

Backing up one more. Start with the point where, "then I started putting up flyers at school." Start there and tell us about getting kicked out and kind of give us an overview of that.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Okay. I put up a gay liberation poster or a flyer talking about

STEPHAN THORNE:

the gay coffee houses that we had every other Sunday in the basement of the church in Lincoln. I thought I can't be the only kid at this school who's gay. Not that I thought of myself as a kid, but I can't be the only one, so I wanted to put it up. As soon as that was seen, I think it was, I dunno, if the principal saw it himself or if it was drawn to his attention, I was called into a meeting

STEPHAN THORNE:

with the principal, and so was my mother. At that meeting, I spoke to the school about being gay and saying that there was nothing wrong with me. That I knew that there were probably other students that were also gay and I wanted to put it up. I was involved with this group and it was a very positive group. We did positive activities together every other week. I was informed that I was not to return to school

STEPHAN THORNE:

until after I had seen a psychiatrist and they would need to have the evaluation presented to them before they would readmit me. My mother made arrangements, there was a place called the Southeast Nebraska psychiatric clinic or psychological clinic. I went there and was interviewed.

STEPHAN THORNE:

That's the first time I ever took the MMPI and the Rorschach. Was given this battery of psychological tests. After taking all of the tests, I went back in to talk to them about their findings. The woman therapist that was talking to me, she said, you're a perfectly healthy lesbian, there's nothing significantly wrong with you. I said, "That's what I said. That's what I said, that's what I told them." I said, fine, thank you very much.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Let's send this to my high school, which was east high school in Lincoln, which was the newest, at the time it was the newest high school that Lincoln had. When I got back to talking again with the principal about returning to school I was informed that well, the report that they had from the clinic that I went to was not satisfactory and that I would have to see a psychiatrist of their choice.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I was aware at the time that that was not going to be ... I didn't feel that was going to be a very good thing for me. My mother felt similarly and said, no, no, that's not right. She's not going to do that, so goodbye. I went out and got a job and started going to night school through adult education

STEPHAN THORNE:

and received my high school diploma from adult ed. That was the time when, if you were gay, you could be kicked out of high school. My sister had been through it, I'm sure that my mother felt ... My mother, she had two daughters, and her oldest daughter had two babies out of wedlock and got kicked out of high school because she was pregnant. Then her second daughter comes along, and she's in high school, and she comes out as a lesbian and she gets kicked out. I think she felt vexed.

STEPHAN THORNE:

But it all worked out. I graduated and then eventually went to the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

MASON FUNK:

A couple things you mentioned. It's so interesting that, not everybody, a lot of people know about Stonewall, but it's so interesting to hear that it was having an impact. Tell us about that. Give us a, you know, Stonewall, the infamous Stonewall riots had happened

MASON FUNK:

a year ago and what effects were being seen in the middle of America?

STEPHAN THORNE:

So with finding my community in Lincoln and being ... It was actually one of the women in the community who was a university student, and she said, I've heard about this group on campus and I'm kind of interested in it, and I thought you might be interested too. I said, really, let's go. I believe she went with me to one meeting,

STEPHAN THORNE:

although I'm not entirely positive. I'm not entirely positive that she was actually there with me, but I went to the group and participated and met all the men that were in the group and we got to talking, they were the ones who were aware

STEPHAN THORNE:

of the Stonewall riots in New York city, the previous year. They were of this homosexual rights movement, gay rights movement that was then really taking hold. I know that there had been, I don't know how much they knew about it. I don't remember where I first heard about the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis. Actually I think I read about the Daughters of Bilitis in the Grapevine, that book I was talking about.

STEPHAN THORNE:

The effects of Stonewall were even coming into the middle of the country and impacting ... Thank God I lived in a college town. I mean, Lincoln's the Capital of the state of Nebraska also, but it's also got not only the main campus of the university, but other universities that have campuses there. I think that was my saving grace, that it was a college town and had attitudes that were more open and progressive and educated.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I took full advantage of that. I think, looking back on it, I am amazed that what happened in New York city within a year was really impacting the middle of the country, but it was especially with gay men in the Midwest.

MASON FUNK:

Wow. Yeah. Do you remember, was it specifically about this is what happened at Stonewall, they fought the cops?

MASON FUNK:

Were those the stories you were kind of going around?

STEPHAN THORNE:

Yes, as much as I can remember, and the sense that this system that was set up to criminalize us was wrong, was simply wrong and we weren't going to tolerate it. We weren't going to continue to accept it because we knew how wrong it was. That's what I remember talking about and hearing about and the focus being about,

STEPHAN THORNE:

with the group that I was involved in and how Stonewall had impacted them.

MASON FUNK:

Oh, excellent. Okay. Now we're going to skip ahead to moving to San Francisco, moving west. By now, you've connected with a partner who has a couple of kids. So basically start off with something like, in whatever year,

MASON FUNK:

my then partner and her kids decide to move to San Francisco, if that's accurate, I mean, I know we're leaving a lot out, but I kind of want to get you out there to the next stage of your life.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Okay. I think it was 1977. Actually, I know it was 1977 when I met Judy, a woman that I became involved with. She was a recently divorced woman

STEPHAN THORNE:

who had two children. When we got together, they were three and five. We were in Omaha, we moved to Omaha together. She lived in Lincoln and I lived in Omaha. She moved the kids up to Omaha. I had realized, actually, before I met her, I had visited San Francisco to visit one of my friends from Omaha who had moved out here. She convinced me, you've got to come out to San Francisco, so wonderful.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I said, okay and came out for a week. That was it. As soon as I visited what is the gay Mecca of the country and saw the beauty of the bay area? It's like, what the hell am I doing in Nebraska? I had begun planning my escape, my leaving of Nebraska, to move to the west coast,

STEPHAN THORNE:

to move to the bay area, and then I met Judy. It was one of the most significant relationships in my life. I've had a few extremely significant relationships, and she was definitely one of them. The kids were involved and I love the kids. I came back to that and said, I really can't stay. She had just come out

STEPHAN THORNE:

into the lesbian community and into the women's community and was in a different place than I was. But I think we recognized, in each other, our significance to each other, so we packed up my van, her car, and moved out to the bay area. We actually lived in Oakland first and settled here. Then when I was in Nebraska and I was 20, I actually had applied to the Omaha police department.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I thought that was a job I really would like to do. I had been their highest scoring female candidate. However, they required a polygraph exam, and during the polygraph, I tried to -- It's the kittens.

MASON FUNK:

Why don't you keep going? We'll see how it goes.

STEPHAN THORNE:

The polygraph with OPD,

STEPHAN THORNE:

it was grueling. It was a three hour session where I tried to conceal my sexual orientation.

MASON FUNK:

Get yourself to California and establish that you're in San Francisco.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Okay. In 1979, January of ' 79 actually is when we moved to the bay area. That was wonderful. When we got here, I mean,

STEPHAN THORNE:

we drove the Southern route because her parents lived in Phoenix and we stopped and visited them and came up through California. Even the freeways were beautiful with looming things along on the freeways, and settled in Oakland. I looked at the gay rags that were, there were two of them at the time that were produced, weekly newspapers that were free. The San Francisco police department was advertising that they were

STEPHAN THORNE:

trying to recruit out lesbians and gay men. They were actively recruiting members of my community to come and apply to be police officers. And that was just, it's like, yes, I can follow this dream and this calling here. That's what I did. I applied along with 7,000 other people because it had been closed for a number of years, they weren't accepting applicants.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I applied to the police department, and of course, we came in January '79. It was just really, I don't know, a month and a half since George Moscone and Harvey Milk had been assassinated. We came just months before the White Night riots happened. I was in the application process for the police department when that occurred.

MASON FUNK:

Tell us just briefly, what were the White Night riots?

STEPHAN THORNE:

The White Night riots were

STEPHAN THORNE:

the lesbian and gay community after the assassination of Harvey Milk and after the trial of Dan white, who was the murderer and former supervisor for the city and county of San Francisco, he was found guilty of manslaughter, not murder, and he got a seven year prison sentence. The community just erupted.

STEPHAN THORNE:

There'd been this awful defense. I think it was the junk food defense, the first time that had ever been successfully used, that he wasn't in his right mind because of eating sugar. The White Night riots started out, of course peacefully, marching to city hall to protest. Holly Near was there, singing. It just was an amazing thing going on. Then

STEPHAN THORNE:

as happens with demonstrations and nightfall and darkness, they attacked police cars and city hall. They started trying to smash in and get into city hall. That caused a different police response. Of course, when you have that kind of violence, they set police cars on fire.

MASON FUNK:

This is roughly the same time that you're applying to be a police officer.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Yes, it was

STEPHAN THORNE:

during that time.

MASON FUNK:

Pick up from there. Say, the White Night riots happened right when you were in the process of applying to be a police officer and you didn't mention to me the other day that you lost friends. Talk about that.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Okay. So first of all, having been in the lesbian feminist community, because simultaneously or nearly simultaneously, for me, with the gay liberation movement was

STEPHAN THORNE:

the women's liberation movement, and I went full force. In fact, I really didn't separate the two. I identified as a lesbian feminist, radical lesbian feminist. Although I didn't live on land owned by women and not see any man, of course, but a lot of my friends were also lesbian feminist, radical lesbian feminist.

STEPHAN THORNE:

With applying to the police department and being hired eventually, my first police department job was with the city of Palo Alto. They hired me more quickly than San Francisco did, so I accepted that and went and worked with them. I lost some of my lesbian and gay friends because I became a police officer and they were adamantly opposed to that kind of authority. Of course, had been

STEPHAN THORNE:

through a traumatic experience with what had happened to Harvey Milk and George Moscone and police interactions, and Stonewall, of course, with the police interactions, just a whole history for the lesbian and gay and trans community of being harassed, arrested, exposed. Terrible things.

MASON FUNK:

And here you were, deciding ...

STEPHAN THORNE:

Yeah. Here I was

STEPHAN THORNE:

deciding to become a police officer. What I said at the time, and I meant and lived it, was that I believed that we needed to have good people be police officers, and that I could maintain my integrity within that career. If I couldn't, I would leave. And I believe that I maintained my integrity through a 34 year law enforcement career, rising to the rank of Lieutenant

STEPHAN THORNE:

and speaking out the whole time, being involved. Being an out lesbian when I was hired, not only when I was applying to San Francisco and eventually hired by them, but also the city of Palo Alto. The point at which I came out was when I was asked in a psychological interview about same-sex relationships. I just simply said, "Yes, I'm involved in a relationship right now and I'm a co-parent of two small children."

MASON FUNK:

What would your friends say to you when you gave them that argument or that pledge, would they be convinced? Would they not be convinced?

STEPHAN THORNE:

My friends were not convinced by my assertion that I could maintain my integrity. I also think that for some of the women that I lost,

STEPHAN THORNE:

some of the friends I lost, I think it was a hard thing to swallow about me, that they had a hard time seeing me. I'd always been so active, so opposed to ... I mean, we were on the same side in every way and trying to break down the patriarchy, and it was so patriarchal. It was just this thing that was male dominated

STEPHAN THORNE:

and authoritarian and paramilitary. I think that they had a really visceral reaction to that. They also had a really hard time, and I think some sadness, about what they thought they were losing, an activist, a feminist activist woman. I've never lost that. I continued to work for those issues throughout my life.

MASON FUNK:

Why did you want to become a police officer?

STEPHAN THORNE:

Well, I understand now, being a privileged white person in this country, that my idea, my concept of police officers and police work was that it was a good profession that people became police officers to help people, and I really wanted to be a hero. I mean, if I tell the truth,

STEPHAN THORNE:

I wanted to be a hero and I wanted to help people, and I wanted to be outdoors. I did not want to be confined in an office or in a factory. Being expelled from high school, I had had my share of working in factories and at low level jobs and being stuck in doors, sometimes without windows.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I really didn't want that. I really thought that I was ... I knew I was capable of more. I'm really proud of my career. I think I was a good cop. I approached it with compassion and respect for others. I have to say, the training that I received and my experience with Palo Alto police department was really

STEPHAN THORNE:

an excellent foundation. I was working with professionals who were really well-educated and had, for me, the right moral background. So many of their values were my values.

MASON FUNK:

Let me ask you again, why did you want to be a police officer?

STEPHAN THORNE:

I really wanted to help people and I was drawn,

STEPHAN THORNE:

I think, to heroism that I saw in it.

MASON FUNK:

Do me a favor, tell me what you're talking about, what career.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Okay. I wanted to become a police officer because I wanted to help people. Being a privileged white person, which is something that I have learned in my adult life, my concept of policing was positive. I looked up to the police, usually,

STEPHAN THORNE:

even though I had been an outlaw. I hadn't experienced really negative interactions. I knew myself and I knew what I wanted to do with it. That's why I wanted, well, that's part of why. I also really, really liked the independence of it and being outdoors and being active. I saw it as an active career.

STEPHAN THORNE:

When I was younger, actually, when I was 17, I almost enlisted into the air force, but there were two things that got in my way of doing that. One was the fact that in order to swear the oath, I had to lie because they ask you directly about your sexual orientation. I was 17, I'd been out for two years, and I had never lived in the closet.

STEPHAN THORNE:

And the dress uniform would have required me to wear a skirt. I had gone through high school being required to wear skirts and dresses. and my experience of that felt like I was forced to dress up in drag. I didn't want to wear skirts and dresses, I was not comfortable. For that reason, I had not followed my own thoughts of going into the military.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Law enforcement had an appeal, I think, to that part of me. It was a good fit. I'm proud of my career. I'm proud of things that I accomplished both personally and for the world and my community, and for individuals. Police officers see people during the worst moments of their lives.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I've told people that their children are dead. I've arrested people. A friend of mine was a therapist in Palo Alto, she called me up, I was at work, I was working graveyards. She said, one of my clients who is a lesbian has been raped and she won't talk to anybody, but I've told her about you and she said she'll talk to you. We caught him. We caught a rapist because another lesbian could relate to a lesbian police officer

STEPHAN THORNE:

and feel safe, safe enough to talk about it. So I did good work and I'm proud of it. I really want other people now, especially now with George Floyd and the horrible racism that's been exposed, the majority of law enforcement, the majority of police officers are really good, decent people, but God, we've got some bad ones and we've got really poor training

STEPHAN THORNE:

that is enabling the bias, the bigotry racism to flourish. It's bad, but I really want good people to go into the field.

MASON FUNK:

We're going to come back to that because that's obviously so timely, that entire topic, just as we're going to go to what's happening today, vis-a-vis trans exclusion and so on. Those are

MASON FUNK:

very important topics to kind of get to towards the end. But thank you for sharing what you've already shared about your motivations and the pride you feel for it, having been a police officer. Let's leap forward a little bit. Now, I believe it's roughly the mid-nineties and you're established on the force and you decide it's time for another big change.

MASON FUNK:

Talk us through what you went through, the process you went through to reach this kind of monumental decision, and then of course would affect you both personally and professionally.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Well, in 1984, I was hired by the San Francisco police department, that was my original intent, was to work there. 1984

STEPHAN THORNE:

I was hired and had to go through a second academy. I went through the San Francisco police academy and got through all the training requirements. About 10 years later, I was a Sergeant. At the time, I'd been promoted once and was a Sergeant. I believed in therapy, basically my whole life and did not share

STEPHAN THORNE:

what so many other people in law enforcement view, the view that seeing a therapist means you're weak. I really already understood that the opposite of that is true, to really examine your own life and your own self takes courage. It's not a wimpy thing to do. I had been in therapy for a while and I couldn't figure out what was going on. I felt like I was

STEPHAN THORNE:

veiled, like there was a veil or something. There was something between me and everyone else that didn't used to be there, and I couldn't figure out what it was. Then I had an epiphany. It was during an intimate moment with my lover at the time, and I realized I should have been a man. That sexually and

STEPHAN THORNE:

with my self identity, that I felt that I should have been a man. Something got crossed or mixed up. And it was like, I dunno, it was like something shattering. It was like a photographic negative, what had been dark became light. It was just so.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I had grappled with it, thought of it earlier because of all those trans women. When I was young, I knew a trans man. I knew him as a lesbian, and he transitioned. I thought about it. I rejected it, didn't think that that was the path for me. Went on with my feminist women's community, which I wouldn't change for the world. Amazing, incredible time to be

STEPHAN THORNE:

part of the women's movement, part of the women's community. '93, I realized that I was trans. I sought out, I found the FTM support group. Again, in those weekly gay rags, at the back of them where all the personals ads, and in the personals ads, there was a FTM support group in San Francisco, and there was a phone number.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I called that phone number and started attending meetings. We had monthly meetings, they were three hours each. I found an amazing group of trans men to talk to. They listened to me and I realized that that's what I was, I was transgender and I could do something about it.

STEPHAN THORNE:

In '93, I began taking testosterone. I didn't tell many people in the beginning, even when I started taking testosterone. Before I did that, I did talk to my family, my mother and my sister and they were accepting and supportive as they had been with my lesbianism.

STEPHAN THORNE:

It did not surprise them in the least, considering my childhood, as well as the rest of my life that they had witnessed so far. Of course, I think for transgender people, particularly for trans adults who are coming into it in adulthood, there was an incredible fear of losing everything, everyone, and everything. I was even

STEPHAN THORNE:

concerned about my family. I was certainly concerned that I would never have another lover. I didn't know who would want me, and I was concerned about my work. I knew that there was protection for me as a gay person or as a lesbian, but I didn't know about any trans protections. At the time, I was the president of the women officer's network,

STEPHAN THORNE:

which is a labor organization within SFPD that we created, the women of SFPD created, to work on behalf of women in the department. Because believe me, there was discrimination against women in the department. I was doing that and realized that I needed to be prepared for what may occur. I contacted an attorney.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I had an attorney ready three weeks before I was going to come out to the chief. I also decided that I needed to not talk to other people in the department because I felt that as soon as it became known that I was transgender, somebody would drop a dime to the press and it would go out as a sideways carnival, sideshow attraction kind of press thing. I really did not want that.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I really didn't want it to happen with my chief of police unprepared. Because of my activism within the department, I knew every chief that was in the department and had a personal relationship with them throughout my career. I developed a plan. I thought, okay, what, what are the issues going to be with transitioning? There's going to be a name change,

STEPHAN THORNE:

a pronoun gender change. I'm going to be using different bathrooms and I need to switch locker rooms. Those are the things that we're all going to have to deal with, myself as well as my coworkers. So months before I came out, I stopped using the women's restroom at work. We had a disabled restroom that was open and wasn't labeled for men or women. I started using that, only, at the station.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I had only one woman Sergeant who we only overlapped in the locker room one day a week, because we were on opposite sides of the watch off groups, so I knew I was going to confront that. I went to the chief of police, made an appointment with him and I walked into his office and he started to talk to me about the most recent lieutenant's exam and how many women were on it. I stopped him

STEPHAN THORNE:

and I said, "I'm sorry, I'm not here for that. I'm here for a personal reason." He said, "Okay let's move." We moved in his office over to where there was a comfortable chair and a small sofa and coffee table. He said, "So, what do you need to tell me?" Or "What are you here to talk about?" I looked at him and I said, I am a female to male transsexual, and I'm going to be transitioning on the job.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I'm here to ask for your help to make that transition the best it can possibly be. Not only for myself, but for everybody I work with and the department. I know that there are going to be some issues. Actually, after I said that, it was kind of a sentence that I said, and then I stopped. I paused and he didn't say a word, but one eyebrow had gone up.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I can just see the gears turning in his mind, so I gave him a minute to collect his thoughts. I said that there were things that I believed would be issues, and I had a plan on how to deal with them. I wanted to run that by him. I said, the name, I'm only going to drop a couple of letters off of my first name. I was fortunate to have a name that I could do that with.

STEPHAN THORNE:

The pronouns are going to change over time. I've been working with these people for 10 years, it's going to take time. I don't want anyone to feel like they have to walk on eggshells around me. We will get through that. I said, the bathroom, I told him I'd already stopped going into the women's bathroom. I said, I don't want to use the men's bathroom or the men's locker room until my transition is far enough along that I look like I belong in those spaces.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Eventually, a little bit later, I talked with the woman Sergeant who was on the other side. She was absolutely fine. She was unconcerned. Told the women at the station. My plan was to address each of the watches at my district station and come out to them, basically tell them

STEPHAN THORNE:

about these four things and explain that my name, okay, it's going to be Steph. It was Steph. It's going to keep being Steph. Frankly, a lot of people just called me Serge. They didn't even use a name. I was a Sergeant so they called me Serge. That's going to be easy. The pronoun is going to be a little harder. You've all known me for a long time, a lot of years. That's going to take time. I know that I'm okay with that. I just want people to make the effort.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Then I told him that I already was not using the women's restroom. And that eventually, later when I looked male, I would want to move into the men's restroom at the station and the men's sergeant's locker room. I was telling the chief about this plan. What I had done three weeks before I met with the chief, part of my fear-based preparation,

STEPHAN THORNE:

was to contact somebody at the human rights commission, San Francisco human rights commission, and I spoke with the gay man there who handled situations, community situations that came up with lesbians and gay men. He told me, well, it just so happens, are you aware of proposition L? I said, no. I didn't live in the city at that time. I said, "What's proposition L?"

STEPHAN THORNE:

He said, "Well, it passed last November, and it was spearheaded by a trans woman in San Francisco." Right now I can't think of her name, I'm so sorry, because she's one of the people who did the work and whose shoulders I stand upon. She got language inserted because San Francisco is a charter city, a lot of our changes have to be approved by the voters.

STEPHAN THORNE:

The language said that you couldn't discriminate based on gender identity for city and county employees only. I had no knowledge that that was even on the books. It had taken effect that January, I was talking to the human rights commission in February. So my timing was impeccable. The universe took really excellent care of me. I was able to go into my meeting with the chief and talk about proposition L,

STEPHAN THORNE:

which he was aware of. He told me, "We will do the best that we can." "I'm aware of proposition L, and we will try to make things as smooth as possible for you and the department." He said, "I understand that you haven't told other people," he said, "but I have to tell you that I have to tell the mayor." I said, "You can tell anybody you want, my goal was to make sure you knew before the press knew."

STEPHAN THORNE:

Then I also explained that I wanted to talk to my captain, my district captain, we have 10 districts in the city of San Francisco. I made an appointment with my captain a couple of days later. I think I spoke in the chief's office on a Friday, and didn't see my captain until the following Monday, and then made an appointment to go in and talk to him. I went into my meeting with my captain who had just come into the district station two weeks before,

STEPHAN THORNE:

he'd just been reassigned as our captain, and the captain I had worked with for years was transferred out. The person who knew me and knew my work was gone and an unknown person was in. I thought, well, that's just what happens, deal with it. I went into his office and I sat down in front of his desk. I said, "The reason I wanted to talk to you is that

STEPHAN THORNE:

I had a meeting on Friday with the chief and told him the same thing. I am a female to male transsexual, and I'm going to be transitioning on the job. I asked the chief for his help. And I asked you for your help. These are the things that are going to be issues. This is my plan. I want to address each of the watches." He said, I think it all makes perfect sense, and I would like to be with you when you

STEPHAN THORNE:

address the watches. The start of each watch, you always have a time where the Lieutenant talks to the officers and makes assignments, et cetera. He initiated, he volunteered to attend those with me. And I had also expressed to him about being worried about the press and that there would be some attention, when it became known, and how I thought it was going to be sideways. He said, "Why don't you

STEPHAN THORNE:

just avert that sideways message that you're concerned about and have a press conference." He said, "You should do that with the chief. If he won't do it with you, which he probably will, but if he won't, I will." The other thing he said to me was that he understood the courage that it took to sit in front of him and say what I had said.

STEPHAN THORNE:

He told me that he had another person in his life, in his private life who is going through what I was going through. He had knowledge and understood what was behind it and what it meant. He, I don't want to say, congratulated me, but he was so supportive and understanding and commented on courage and strength, and recognized it

STEPHAN THORNE:

in me and admired it. I contacted the chief's office at his suggestion. The chief said, yes, we're a go. I said, "I want only the print press. I'd like to avoid television." That's fine. He had a meeting in his office where the newspapers were invited. They took a photograph of me in front of the hall of justice after we had had our press conference.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Then I went on to work that afternoon. I was working swing shifts, and as I pulled into the station where I work, it's a long driveway to this particular station, Ingleside station in San Francisco. As I drove up this driveway through a park, a city park, I saw all of the TV vans with the antenna

STEPHAN THORNE:

put up, and drove in. Of course, they didn't know who was driving in. It was my private car and they didn't know what I looked like yet. I went into the station and was met by the Lieutenant. I was assigned out on the streets as a supervising Sergeant. The Lieutenant told me, "Steph, they've been here all day, all morning and you don't have to talk to them

STEPHAN THORNE:

if you don't want to. If you'd rather work in the station and be the station keeper, I'll switch you." I said, "No, that's not necessary. I don't want to change anybody's plans." She also told me that they'd been approaching officers asking them if they knew, of course. So I said,

STEPHAN THORNE:

I would like to go talk to the press. I think that if I don't go talk to them, they're going to stay here all day. Maybe if I talk to them, they'll go away. So she said, okay. I went and got dressed, got into my uniform and went outside and introduced myself and had microphones and cameras focused on me and made a similar statement about being transsexual

STEPHAN THORNE:

and transitioning on the job and that I had every intention of being professional about it. It was nothing that was going to disrupt my career or my department or the policing. I don't remember exactly what the statement was, but they didn't go away. It didn't work. They stayed there all day and continued to approach

STEPHAN THORNE:

officers to try to get reactions. Fortunately for me, and fortunately for other trans people, there weren't any officers who were really willing, at least on camera, to say negative things. There were officers who I knew and I had worked beside for many years and who made positive statements which I appreciated

STEPHAN THORNE:

very much. So that was that, I was out. There was a lot of press attention that was worldwide. I talked to radio stations in Australia, all around our country. I was offered money by a British tabloid that I refused because they wanted to follow me into surgery. It's like no,

STEPHAN THORNE:

that won't be happening. I think part of that was for my own privacy, but part of it was also, I am a police officer. I work with the public every day. Do you think I'm going to be so exposed, no, not happening.

MASON FUNK:

First of all, let's go back to what we also alluded to, you're having these monumental conversations with your chief and your captain and others,

MASON FUNK:

but those two, primarily. Start by saying, as I told my chief, my captain, what I intended to do, just tell me what was your body, where are you feeling on the inside? How are you managing what must've been an enormous amount of fear, expectations, stress the whole nine yards.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Okay. So, well, when I was talking to the chief

STEPHAN THORNE:

I certainly had some trepidation.

MASON FUNK:

I'm sorry, I'm gonna interrupt. Just set the stage, "When I was talking to the chief and telling him ... I certainly have ..." Just so we know.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Okay. When I was talking to the chief, it was Tony Ribeira, at the time. When I was talking to Chief Ribeira, I certainly came into the meeting

STEPHAN THORNE:

with some anxiety and some trepidation, not excessive. I think the reason that I wasn't especially fearful at that time was because of my knowledge of preposition L and the fact that I had a legal leg to stand on. I certainly know that just because there's a law on the books that prohibits discrimination doesn't mean there's not discrimination, but

STEPHAN THORNE:

it gives you a leg. It gives you a stand, a place to make your stand. And that was incredibly important to me, and significant. I had been moving along for months, not believing that that existed, so that really made a difference in my meeting with the chief. The security and the sense of confidence, and self-esteem that I went in with was pretty solid. The same

STEPHAN THORNE:

was true when I went in and talked to my captain. Captain Michael Dour was that new captain that had come in a couple of weeks before, but during my conversation with Captain Dour, first of all, he made the comment about recognizing that telling him what I was telling him required some level of courage. Then when he

STEPHAN THORNE:

told me that he knew someone, he never told me who. I don't know if it was a child of his, a relative, a friend, a friend's kid, I don't know. But the fact that he told me that he knew someone who was going through what I was going through, and he had a greater understanding because of that, I immediately assumed that it was going to be that he knew someone who was transitioning male to female, which is commonly what people were exposed to.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I think still, there's still an invisibility to the female to male community, trans community that still exists, but certainly at the time. I commented to him, "Oh, do you know somebody who's trans?" And he said, no, exactly like you. The hairs on my arms just went up when I heard that. I had a little difficulty not crying. I could freely feel

STEPHAN THORNE:

the liquid in my eyes. I really didn't want a tear to fall, and it didn't. I couldn't believe what had just been given to me, the fact that I'd been fearful. I'd been fearful about the captain because I didn't know him and this other captain that I had worked with and who knew me, and the universe just puts this captain in my station, right when I needed him

STEPHAN THORNE:

to be the perfect circumstance. The other thing that I had been really worried about was my safety. I was really afraid. I was afraid of how people in the department were going to take it. I was afraid that there could be potential to not get back up on the streets. Before I had talked to the human rights commission, I certainly wondered about

STEPHAN THORNE:

either A) being fired or B) not being directly fired, but having people make my life so miserable and fail to back me up that I would either want to quit or I could be hurt or killed, potentially. I grossly underestimated, not only the professionalism, but the compassion of the people that I work with. None of those fears ever came true.

STEPHAN THORNE:

None of them, not with my family, not with most of my friends. I mean, again, I lost a few friends as I had, becoming a police officer, transitioning. Some of my lesbian friends were not comfortable. But the people that I worked with were amazing. That's not to say that my transition was easy

STEPHAN THORNE:

or that people did not treat me badly or do things that are actually illegal in anti-discrimination laws, they did. But for every instance where someone treated me badly, disrespectfully walked past me after I'd said hello without saying a word very intentionally, used

STEPHAN THORNE:

female pronouns very intentionally, talking to other citizens using incorrect pronouns very intentionally, those things happened. But for every one of those, I felt like there were 10 people that I worked with who had been gracious, who had been supportive and tolerant. And that's what I focused on. The other stuff,

STEPHAN THORNE:

I had been extremely fearful about it, which I think is true of every adult who transitions. Hopefully, that's changing now, but I certainly understand if, even now, there's still a lot of fear. Again, within a couple of months of coming out, the San Francisco human rights commission

STEPHAN THORNE:

and Terry, one of the city supervisors, held a public hearing on the transgender community, which I went and testified at. That happened within a matter of months. After that, one of the men that I knew, that had been one of the very significant people in the FTM support group, was Jamison Green, and he wrote

STEPHAN THORNE:

the report on that hearing, which is the human rights commission, the SF human rights commissions most sought after, most requested report that they've ever developed. He wrote that one of the things that definitely came out of the hearing was mistreatment by law enforcement and other security people in authority and security personnel. One of the

STEPHAN THORNE:

recommendations in that report was training the San Francisco police department. James and I looked at each other and said, let's do this. We'd both been trainers previously and currently. Between us, we made a very law enforcement specific, he brought the familiarity and expertise

STEPHAN THORNE:

about the community and about the subject of transgender people and transsexuality, and I brought the law enforcement expertise and knowledge and understanding, and we developed, what I understand, I think it's the first in the world, transgender community awareness training for law enforcement. I have been continuing to present those trainings ever since June of 1995.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Was the first time we taught an SFPD academy class. I continued doing that throughout my career until retirement. I trained another FTM in the department to take over the trainings. He was interested in doing it and he was younger, fresh blood, energized, took it over. I continue to do law enforcement trainings today.

STEPHAN THORNE:

When I was with the department and after I developed the training, Seattle PD, LAPD, LASD, the Sheriff's department, metropolitan police Washington, DC, NYPD all contacted my department and ultimately me and I freely shared the curriculum that we had developed.

STEPHAN THORNE:

In the state of California, we have POST, which is our peace officers standards and training, which is kind of an oversight body for law enforcement in California. There is now an approved, authorized transgender community training program that's authorized by them. It was developed based on my stuff, but developed by the San Francisco Sheriff's department personnel, and got approval.

MASON FUNK:

I think one thing that comes to mind that's worth noting is this is twenty-five years ago, essentially more than 25, 27/28 years ago, but this is all happening. To someone just listening to your interview, they might think, oh, well, there's so much talk about trans people these days and so on, but this is a different era. I don't know if you're able to describe that. This is an era when all the TV stations who was show up at

MASON FUNK:

the police department headquarters because ...

STEPHAN THORNE:

A transgender person.

MASON FUNK:

Yeah. Can you just kind of like how much visibility, if you can quantify, in this year when you're transitioning, who was out there? What was known? What was in the public domain regarding transexuals and transgender people? What was out there? Set it up by saying, in the time that I was transitioning and whatever.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Thinking back, I remember that at the time that all of this was occurring, people didn't really know about transsexuals or transgender people much at all. All of the documentaries that have been done and the programs, and certainly the television programs ... I remember

STEPHAN THORNE:

when Ellen came out on national television as a lesbian, how important that was at that time. Even that was, god, decades ago now, for Ellen. But talking about trans people and having programming about trans people just didn't exist. There had been a very small amount, I think, of exposure, certainly with -- Oh God,

STEPHAN THORNE:

I'm spacing on the woman's name, the first trans woman, she was a United States citizen. It was in the 50s.

MASON FUNK:

Christine Jorgensen.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Thank you. Christine Jorgensen, of course, had been publicized, Renee Richards. Actually, that's one of the books that I read, was Renee Richards' book about transitioning, coming out. There had been a little bit about trans women

STEPHAN THORNE:

that was known, and some of the talk shows, unfortunately, well, no, some of the talk shows that had some small exposure, but even talk shows, Oprah was on at the time in the 90s, '94, when I came out publicly and there was public attention. But it was a mostly unheard of, unrecognized thing,

STEPHAN THORNE:

especially for a female person to transition to male, which, believe me, my experience of that, I think that I certainly learned that gay men suffer discrimination and violence that most lesbians don't, the same or something exponentially bigger than that

STEPHAN THORNE:

is true for trans women versus trans men, especially of course, trans women of color. The level of hostility, violence, and rejection is extreme. In that way, my circumstances were a little easier than some trans women that I know quite well and consider friends.

STEPHAN THORNE:

But it was a time when it just wasn't talked about. What came about after the news coverage for me was the talk shows contacting me, Sally Jessy Raphael, I think Jerry Springer, maybe not. I tried to contact the Oprah show, but their producers were not interested, but Phil Donahue contacted me.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Eventually Phil Donahue actually called me before I agreed to do it because I was so leery of how a talk show would handle, even though I had been a watcher of Phil Donahue, I loved his show and respected him and his wife Marlo Thomas. He convinced me, talking to me in person, 'we're going to handle this sensitively,

STEPHAN THORNE:

just look at my history of shows.' I said, okay I believe you, thank you for reassuring me directly. Michiko and I went to New York, and we're on the Donahue show. Something that happened later is one of the documentaries that was made that I saw. Honestly, I don't remember which one it was, but I saw a younger than me FTM talk about how when he was younger,

STEPHAN THORNE:

he didn't understand or know what was going on until he saw a guy on the Donahue show, the Phil Donahue show, and it opened it up for him. That was a moment for me, to watch that on film and actually hear from someone who my life impacted their life. I've been so conscious, as a feminist, as a gay person,

STEPHAN THORNE:

as an activist, you're always standing on the shoulders of those who've come before you, the people who were doing the work before you were doing it, I stand on their shoulders and now others stand on mine. It's a continuation. Today's environment, because of all the work that so many people have done for so long, we're at this place where we are now, which until 2016 was quite remarkable,

STEPHAN THORNE:

and then an election took place. Now there are things going on focusing on the transgender community, I've noticed with marriage equality and with decades of exposure to the idea of lesbians and gay men not being crazy, not being perverted, not being sick, not being predators or predatory, that it's not the focus now,

STEPHAN THORNE:

the gay people and the lesbians are not the boogeyman to the Right. Now, it's transgender people and transgender kids, and it is awful. There are people who are terrorized by it in the community, young people who are terrorized by it.

MASON FUNK:

Let me break in, I want to kind of keep us on track. I'm going to go backwards again, then we'll kind of work our way forward again. But I did want to highlight what I mentioned earlier when you went to

MASON FUNK:

these position of authority, you've told me, you said to them, "I'm a transsexual man, a female to male transsexual, and I'm going to transition on the job." That language is very striking to me, especially the second part, "I'm going to transition on the job". Can you walk us through how you felt confident enough to state that as some you intended to do,

MASON FUNK:

as opposed to, say, asking permission or wondering maybe I should quit my job and transition and then get a new job, because female to male transgender people have more options sometimes where they can transition

STEPHAN THORNE:

And visibly we're not noticeable.

MASON FUNK:

Right. So you can re-emerge and start a new life, career, whatever. I was struck by that statement. Can you talk about that?

STEPHAN THORNE:

Yes. I know when I was talking about

STEPHAN THORNE:

how I approached the chief and how I approached the captain and what I said to them, it was intentional on my part, and I was emboldened, although I still had the root of my own inner strength and inner character, but I was emboldened by proposition L and knowing that that was

STEPHAN THORNE:

there for me. But also, I think being a police officer and being drawn into that kind of career where you do exert authority, I think that that all was folded in to enabling me to go in to my chief, to the person in the position of authority in my department and make the statement that this is what I am.

STEPHAN THORNE:

This is who I am. I am a transsexual man. I am a female to male transsexual, and I will be transitioning on the job. I think what I wanted to communicate with that was that this is here, this is happening. You're going to have to deal with it and accommodate it. That's something that was trained and honed growing up as a female, being treated differently as a female,

STEPHAN THORNE:

being a feminist, understanding sexism, understanding the patriarchy and how it works, and that's what I needed to communicate. I did not want to place myself lower than or present the idea that someone outside of me had the ability to

STEPHAN THORNE:

say yay or nah on who I was or what I was going to do about it. I think that's what was working inside me at the time.

MASON FUNK:

That's fascinating. Thank you for that.

MASON FUNK:

We have several questions still to go. Let's go to two of the big topics highlighted. One of them, when you and I talked about on the phone, the so-called trans exclusionary radical feminists, that have become so-called TERFS now.

MASON FUNK:

I remember somebody we interviewed said to me, there's nothing more ironic than queer people discriminating against each other, but it happens, it's happening in our community. What do you notice about -- you were a radical lesbian, a radical feminist, and now you're a transgender man, openly transgender man. What do you notice about these conversations, about whether, say, transgender girls should be able to compete in women's sports?

MASON FUNK:

Back in the day, whether they would've qualified to go to the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, what comes up for you around this controversy, this argument that's within our community.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Yeah. About our community, the LGBTQI+ community,

STEPHAN THORNE:

for one thing, I know that there are a lot of people in the community who either are apologetic about the alphabet soup or feel that they need to explain it or make fun of it, or be critical of it. I have a unique perspective on that. Having been female, having been a lesbian,

STEPHAN THORNE:

frankly, one of the first things that happened in my life was working with the Lincoln gay action group. As I was discovering feminism, so were they, the men who were also in the group. I remember a time in the community where it used to be the gay and lesbian community, and lesbians worked really hard to make it the lesbian-gay community

STEPHAN THORNE:

because of lesbian invisibility, because of female invisibility. I think I see the value of LGBTQ+, because if you're not named you don't exist. And I have felt that. I would have thought, I did think, that lesbians and gay men would be unlikely

STEPHAN THORNE:

to discriminate against others because we know what it feels like. Of course, that's not true. Lesbians and gay men, there are racists in our community. There are misogynists in our community. There are man haters in our community. There's everything. I appreciate how important it is to be named

STEPHAN THORNE:

and to be visible. It doesn't feel good to be invisible and none of us should be invisible and none of us should feel invisible. That's something that I've tried to make a difference in with my life, is making us more visible, and something that I'm aware of in my trainings that I do, my anti-biased transgender trainings for law enforcement,

STEPHAN THORNE:

is I always also talk about race. It is so important to ... We are weaker, separate; we are stronger together. One form of discrimination and hate does feel similar to every other form of discrimination and hate. It comes from the same place, which is ignorance.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I just really think it's so important. I know I used to say, and I still say, for lesbians and gay men who were not out, that I really understand, and I recognize everyone's right to be or not be out, and define that for themselves and live their lives the way that they need to live their lives. But I have always felt for those of us who are able to be out,

STEPHAN THORNE:

we must be, we must be out, and that's what I've done. That's what I've done with being a lesbian, being a member of the gay community. That's what I did as a feminist, and that's what I've done as a transgender person, is to make sure that I am out. I've been able to do it. I've been strong enough to do it. I've been graced to do it.

STEPHAN THORNE:

That's how I contribute to humanity's progress. I think that's where we should all be heading, in the same direction of progress of tolerance, acceptance, and love. That's what being out leads to.

MASON FUNK:

Great. Thank you for that.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Did I cover it?

MASON FUNK:

Yeah, that was awesome. Okay.

MASON FUNK:

controversial topic number two, you're a retired police officer, and needless to say, police officers, they're not getting a lot of love these days. There's a lot of ... We've already alluded to it. How has that felt? How does it feel? How do you reconcile what you experienced as a person, the integrity that you believe you held, with bad behavior on some of your colleagues

MASON FUNK:

on the part [inaudible]. How do you manage this moment as a retired and proud, as a proud retired police officer?

STEPHAN THORNE:

Yeah, well one of the things that I was really determined about during my career was that I wasn't going to let anybody take it away from me, not as a woman, not as a lesbian and not as a transgender person. The best revenge is a good life. I have really had

STEPHAN THORNE:

a good life. I appreciate my life. I'm grateful for it. It is full; it's full of people and full of love, full of friends, full of family. With retirement, in a way, I certainly acknowledge that, at the timing of my retirement before the current

STEPHAN THORNE:

climate in our country and attitudes and experience with law enforcement, certainly figuratively and potentially, literally, I dodged a bullet by retiring when I did because I have not had to confront the trauma, the danger the exponential

STEPHAN THORNE:

charge that is on police and policing right now. I give my respect and my love to people who are in the career, who are doing the work. I know it's hard, I know it's dangerous and that it can be fulfilling. I also know that it can be cumulatively toxic.

STEPHAN THORNE:

In my trainings, again, what I tell recruit classes all the time is therapy is not a bad thing. It does not equal weakness. Peer counseling works. We have peer counseling in our profession. Use it. Therapy is a good thing. And always maintain friendships with people who are not police officers. You have your friendships at work or through work, and those are

STEPHAN THORNE:

incredibly valuable and necessary, but you've always got to have more than that. Don't become isolated and narrowed down into the field, and have a tunnel vision that will help you be a better police officer. It will help your mental health and it will help other people recognize that people who do this work are good people.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I am torn inside by what I have witnessed. I am thankful for the technology, for phones, portable phones that have cameras on them. I think that what people of color, particularly black people in our country, as well as different places in the world,

STEPHAN THORNE:

had been telling other people about racism, because white people don't have the experience, many white people just don't believe it. 'Oh, it's not that bad.' 'Oh, that was in the past.' What we can now see with our own eyes is that, no, it isn't in the past. And yes, it is that bad. We have got to deal with it head on.

STEPHAN THORNE:

We have got to have better training. We've got to have continuous training. Perishable skills in law enforcement, you have to keep renewing them. You have to look for good people. I had the good fortune in my career to experience working in recruitment and retention, and I was a background investigator. What I learned is the significance of that place in a department.

STEPHAN THORNE:

That's who does the hiring. Right there, you're choosing the next generation or all the following generations of officers that are coming in. You've got to have good people. People with a good awareness of who should be police officers. Yes, we need strong people who are capable of exerting authority

STEPHAN THORNE:

and have command presence. Those qualities all have to be tempered with compassion, respect, generosity, love for not only oneself but others. Those are the kinds of people that we need to recruit. Now, especially with the legalization of marijuana happening in so many places,

STEPHAN THORNE:

we have to look at our hiring policies and our exclusions and we have to update them. We've just got to update and not allow old attitudes, whether it's about tattoos or certain drugs. Certain drugs, I agree, you need to not do those. But marijuana is a different beast altogether, and those are

STEPHAN THORNE:

really important things that all need to be looked at again and revamped and modernized.

MASON FUNK:

Okay, good. Thank you for that. I remembered another question that related very much related, which was, we talked about this on the phone, decisions on the parts of certain pride marches to exclude cops, police officers. When, of course, it was once upon a time considered a major milestone for ...

STEPHAN THORNE:

To be in the parade

MASON FUNK:

Gay and lesbian police officers

MASON FUNK:

to be marching in a pride parade. Now they're being told, we don't want you. Your mere existence is antithetical to who we are. How does that feel? And I have to say this, I hate to say it, keep it short. And if it's too big, maybe, I don't even know if we have to go there, but I'm just aware of the clock and I've got shortlisted questions. I still want to get through. Maybe it's too big a topic, I don't know.

STEPHAN THORNE:

What I can say about what's going on with ... This is the first year that the community, the lesbian-gay community actually rejected participation by law enforcement, out law enforcement officers, uniformed officers, marching

STEPHAN THORNE:

in the parade side-by-side with the other members of the community. I remember when San Francisco police department was first allowed. Allowed! We had to work hard within and without of the department to get that change effected so that we could participate in uniform, in pride parades. It was a major accomplishment,

STEPHAN THORNE:

and I was always proud to march in the parades. I would still be proud to march in the parades. I am conflicted about it because I really understand that other people other than me, now looked upon as a white male, the most privileged position,

STEPHAN THORNE:

they have different experiences than I have had, and they have been traumatic. Especially with what's been revealed about people in my profession doing unconscionable things, murder, committing murder, under color of authority. I have understanding for there

STEPHAN THORNE:

being a desire to separate the two and say, 'you can't be here'. What I hope is that it's temporary, that you need to not be here for now because this is too raw and we have to deal with it and we have to heal it. But when that process is well underway, my hope and what I would potentially actively work toward is reintegrating.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Having law enforcement personnel actively participate in the future, again. I know that there's attitudes about the military and anti-military and what an incredible achievement it was to enable LGBTQI people to actively serve, to proudly serve, to be out and serve in our armed forces.

STEPHAN THORNE:

I understand that we need to be a peaceful species. I understand that war is awful, and I wish it weren't even a last resort, let alone, in some cases, how it's just so quickly moved toward. But I am also proud of our military personnel who are lesbians, gays and trans people, et cetera.

STEPHAN THORNE:

It's insignificant and important to us all, and it all moves us forward. I understand not being able to have us there right now. I have enough compassion and empathy and sympathy to comprehend that and respect it. I just hope it's not permanent. I intend for it to not be permanent.

MASON FUNK:

There you go. Okay. Great. Thank you. Big topic, before we get to what I call the final four, you mentioned one of the things you definitely don't want to fail to address is just the joy you've had in your life of being a father and a grandfather. Now, unfortunately, we're not going to have tons of time, but you've had two substantial relationships with

STEPHAN THORNE:

Children.

MASON FUNK:

Families, children, and grandchildren. Can you just give us an overview of who your composite family consists of

MASON FUNK:

and the joy that's given to you?

STEPHAN THORNE:

About my family, I have had the blessings of having two very significant women in my life, two very significant relationships, and those women have children. The first relationship that I had earlier with, who I call my kids,

STEPHAN THORNE:

Patrick and Alex, they were three and five when their mother and I met. Now they're both in their forties, and we're all still in each other's lives. My two kids have four children between them. My daughter has three and my son has one. My second significant relationship with Michiko. She has three children from her previous marriage.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Two of those were adults away at college when we met, but one was a teenager still at home. Her three children all have children now, they each have two. So there are six grandchildren on her side and four grandchildren on my side. We are a blended family. Everyone knows everyone, and everyone gets along. We're not quite totally enmeshed, I ended up

STEPHAN THORNE:

spending more time with our youngest grandchildren who happened to be on Michiko's side, and we lived together and circumstances ... I was partially raised by my maternal grandparents, I realized the feelings that I had all through my life and I continue to have about my grandparents.

STEPHAN THORNE:

It's so incredible to me. I'm so glad to have had the opportunity in my life to live full circle and be a grandfather and be able to relate it to my grandfather. I got the chance to be that. When I was young and I was gay, I had no concept that that would ever be possible, lesbians or gay men who had children, when I came out, they got taken away.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Those children were taken away by the courts, by law, and now to have lesbians, gay men, transgender people, everyone, have the entire community, have marriage equality and have rights to have children and raise children and adopt children, is incredible. In my life, it has brought me incredible joy. I wouldn't trade it for anything. It's amazing. I love our kids

STEPHAN THORNE:

and our grandkids. They feed me. They keep me young. They make life vibrant. They make me care about the horror of global warming and George Floyd and everything else. Not only are we a blended family, we are completely blended family with transgender, cis-gender, gay men, lesbians.

STEPHAN THORNE:

My wife is bi-racial, which I think, when we first met, that was one of the places that we found each other, because we could relate to each other, being in between. Hers had to do with race, mine had to do with gender, but it was a place for us to connect. Now, most of my grandchildren, they're people of color. They don't appear white and

STEPHAN THORNE:

God, I love them. It's so wonderful. I'm so happy for our progress for so many other people who are in the community that can experience this. I also completely appreciate and understand those who don't.

MASON FUNK:

Great. Thank you for that. Perfect. Wonderful. Okay. Now the final four, I don't have a literal clock, but I'm actually gonna use this phrase for the first time.

MASON FUNK:

I bet I just popped in like four questions, four minutes. If we can make these really short, it'll just help us to finish on time. Also, they're intended to be short. Question number one, you came out at 15, but we asked the same age to all of our interviews, if you could tell your 15 year old self anything, what would it be?

STEPHAN THORNE:

Oh, wow. If I could tell my 15 year old self

STEPHAN THORNE:

something from now, well, I would tell her that it's all going to be okay. That life is going to be good. And I had the right mother, she brought me up saying

STEPHAN THORNE:

'always be true to yourself'. I would tell myself at 15, you keep doing that. You've been doing it, you keep it up. You're going to be fine.

MASON FUNK:

Great. Okay. Do you ascribe, in any way, shape or form, to the notion that all LGBTQI+ people or queer people have a kind of a common quality or a trait that could almost be considered a super power that

MASON FUNK:

connects all of us, and that enables us to live and thrive and be resilient and do good in the world?

STEPHAN THORNE:

Wow.

MASON FUNK:

I call it the queer superpower question.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Queer superpower question. I would say that I think something that most of us have in common is strength and resilience.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Many of us, many of us have a greater maturity, and I think it comes from being othered. It comes from that experience of being outside of the lines and having to buck up. You have to buck up and go get it for yourself. I think that

STEPHAN THORNE:

that is our super power.

MASON FUNK:

Great. Okay, perfect. Why is it important to you to tell your story?

STEPHAN THORNE:

Let's see. Well, I think that it's really important to tell my story because I think it has value. It has value to other people

STEPHAN THORNE:

who don't share my experience, who haven't shared it. I think it can be enlightening. It can be educational and informative. I think that it's important to tell it for others who are like me, because when you can see it, you can be, it's like that book I read when I was 15 years old, I found out about this whole community that had existed

STEPHAN THORNE:

for a long time before me, and would still be out there and I could meet other people like me and there's power in that there's safety in it and encouragement.

MASON FUNK:

Great. Okay. And the last question is this organization called OUTWORDS, with our mission of recording stories like yours across the country, people we call

MASON FUNK:

elders and pioneers of the LGBTQI civil rights movement and community. What do you see as the value of doing that, if any? If you could mention OUTWORDS in your answer.

STEPHAN THORNE:

Let's see. Well, I think that it's really valuable, like I said, to tell my story, but for all of our stories to be told, and the fact that OUTWORDS is here, that you exist, that you're doing the work

STEPHAN THORNE:

that you're doing and putting our stories and our histories on record for people right now to gain access to, to use, to utilize, to learn from, to move forward with in whatever way, and for people in the future to look back on our history and know about it and know that wherever they are then,

STEPHAN THORNE:

we were all back here now. and before now, and a lot of people have worked really hard to give them all of the opportunities that they have. It's just true for all humans. We're just all responsible for the next generation. So thank you for what you do, for what OUTWORDS does. It's fabulous.

MASON FUNK:

Well, thank you. It's our pleasure.