Voices

Every year when the days grow short and the recycling bins groan with spent cartons of egg nog, we take a break from breaking news (and digging through the police chief's trash) to do something a little different. We open up our pages to ordinary Portlanders with extraordinary stories. They aren't newsmakers in the traditional sense of the word, nor do they represent any particular group or ideology. Rather, they remind us that fascinating characters often dwell behind
conventional facades.

Those we selected this year include a transgendered couple, a crusading dentist and a documentary film star. All have undergone profound changes that have given them unique perspectives on issues ranging from the shortcomings of
emergency-room care to the relationship between sexual organs and kitchen
appliances.

Rita Beigh and Andi Uehara: Busting the Gender Barrier in Oregon
You won't find Henriette Cecile Beigh and Andrea Yoshiko Uehara on the new "Celebrations" page of The Oregonian, but someday you might find them in the history books. That's because Rita and Andi are transgender trailblazers. Born 55 years ago as Henry Charles Beigh and Andrew Iwao Uehara, they are, perhaps, the only same-sex couple to become legally married in the state of Oregon, a feat accomplished during the brief time that Andrew had become Andi and Henry had not yet become Rita. They even have the certificate to prove it.

But Rita, a software expert, and Andi, a Food Front worker, didn't set out to be radicals. They were just two middle-aged people who fell in love while transitioning from men to women.

Last month they sat down with WW reporters Byron Beck and Chris Lydgate and shared their story.

Willamette Week: Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Rita Beigh: I was born in Portland, and I grew up in a military family. You know, my father was never there. My daddy was a fighter pilot during World War II and Korea. I was in the Marine Corps for 10 and a half years, and then I was married and had children.

You've been married how many times?

This is my fourth marriage.

What do you do?

I'm a software quality-assurance engineer, which basically means that I'm a programmer who has turned on her peers.

Does your company know what you've gone through?

My company in general does not know.

So this will be a coming-out.

In that context, yes. I don't see that that's going to bring any harm to me. Bottom line is, my license plate says 2M2FTS, "Two male-to-female transsexuals." So I'm pretty out anyway. It's not like I'm going to walk up to a total stranger and say, "Oh, you look like an interesting person--and by the way, I'm a transsexual." But I'm also not going back into the closet. It's something I'm proud, rather than ashamed, of. If people don't like it, then c'est la vie.

How about your family?

My family doesn't like it.

Do you have a relationship with your family?

No, just my nephew in Vancouver. My sister and niece and my father and my stepmother have turned out to be real shits.

Andi, tell us a little about your background.

Andi Uehara: I was born in New York City. My mother, who had grown up in San Francisco, had been in an internment camp for two years. Toward the end of the war, they started letting people out. She and her sister went to New York, and that's where she met my father, who was a merchant seaman. My mother and I moved back to San Francisco, and I grew up there. I went to Catholic school and a two-year college. I was drafted after two years.

Did you go to Vietnam?

No, I wound up spending two years in Indiana. That was my revelation: that living in San Francisco is not like living in the rest of the U.S.

How would you describe your sexual development?

I was very conflicted. It started when I was 4 or 5 years old. In high school, when everything starts to change and you try to figure out who you are, all of a sudden it's like, "Oh, there's this strong female person that's just part of me," but I didn't know where to go with it.

Rita: I had some really weird tendencies. As a child, I never felt like I belonged with the boys. I didn't feel male, but I didn't feel female. I actually asked for a doll at one point--I think I was maybe in the fourth or fifth grade--and my father, the commander, just went absolutely ballistic. He scared the shit out of me.

How did you respond?

Rita: I pretty much ceased being demonstrative as far as who I was. It's not unusual in male-to-female transsexuals. The pattern is that you recognize that you are exhibiting characteristics that are extremely displeasing to people that you want to please, so you suppress them and you are in denial about them. That goes on for a while, and then it pops up, and then you're back in denial. Finally it gets to a point where the risk of playing the game on the other side of the fence is less than the damage that you're doing to yourself on this side of the fence, and then it's time to make a move.

Can you explain the damage on this side of the fence?

Depression. Attempts at suicide. Self-destructive behaviors. Hypermasculinity itself brings on that risk-taking thing. For me it was always cars. The idea I could take anybody's car in the world and kick butt with it. I have calmed down a bit, but back when I was 20, 25, 30 years old, I was dangerous.

Andi, how did you get to Oregon?

Andi: After I got out of the service, in '69, I went back to San Francisco and became an anti-war activist and part of the counterculture. A friend of mine had moved to Salem to start a natural-food store. He needed some help. I told him that I would come up for the summer and help him out. I was in Salem for about 10 years. That's where I met my first spouse. We had a daughter who is now 25.

Do you have a relationship with her?

I don't, but I'm still trying to work at it. We're in email communication, but I'm having difficulty connecting. She was feeling like, "Oh my God, now I'm going to have to try to get to know you all over again." Part of that's true, but part of it's not. You still have the same person, with the same history. Both her mother and I have gone through a variety of personal changes. She was a Rajneeshee, and I was a Rajneeshee.

You were a Rajneeshee?

I was at Rajneeshpuram for three years.

As Andrew?

As Andrew.

Did you have a job there?

We all did. I did security and construction.

Did you get out before it turned bad?

No. We stayed through the whole thing. We helped it wind down. In some ways that was a nice period, because we didn't have the paranoia that dominated the commune.

How did you and Rita meet?

Via the Internet. Well, actually, it was before that. We did have an encounter at Food Front, 'cause that's where I worked.

Rita: I bought my membership at Food Front from her.

As Henry, or Henriette?

Rita: As Henry. This was '95.

Let's talk about your transitions. How did they come about?

Andi: I started therapy in '96. That was when gender came up. My therapist actually went to a support group with me, called Northwest Gender Alliance, where I started to try and figure out how I could live with this, this part of me. I was not able to get on with my life. I think this is common for someone who's in the cycle of being a cross-dresser. They feel like, "Oh, I'm totally weird, why am I doing this, there's something wrong with me." They go through this period of purging, where they get rid of all their clothing and try to say, "I'm going to go cold turkey."

Rita, was your transition similar?

Rita: Oh no, mine was totally different. I hardly ever cross-dressed as an adult. As a child, all the time! Halloween was the big thing. But once I got in trouble for it, I decided I was going to suppress this, to save my own ass.

Did the desire ever surface as an adult?

It would pop up every once in a while. The first time I recollect was when Renee Richards [the famous '70s transgendered tennis star] was outed. She did an interview in Playboy magazine. I carried that article around with me for years and would read it occasionally and go, "Yeah, that's me." And then I would go, "Oh my God, that can't be me, this is revolting." And I'd throw the magazine away. And the next day I'd plow through the dumpster, trying to find the magazine again. That interview was my little lifeboat that I clung to for years.

So what made you move to the transition?

In '98, I met this woman. Around June, we started getting serious. We'd already done the sex thing, and I had noticed some differences, but nothing I could quite put my finger on. I suspected that she might be a transsexual. And, as it turned out, she 'fessed up to it. Her expectation was that I was going to leave her. And I said, "Hey, it doesn't make any difference to me." That clicked because this person was an ordinary person like me, and she had done it. After we broke up I decided, damn it to hell, I'm going to go see a shrink about this. And so I did. I went the first time as Henry, I went the second time as Henriette, and after that there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that I was doing the right thing. It was just like one of those "aw shit!" moments.

What do you mean?

Rita: You think, "Why haven't I known this before? It's the truth." I made my first shrink appointment about gender dysphoria early in January '99, and I went full-time as a woman on Aug. 1. That's also when my father quit talking to me. So my transition was quite a bit different from Andrea's. It was rather sudden for me, even though the clues were always there.

Andi: When I met Rita, there was this synergy of meeting someone who's actually in transition, who's thinking about surgery and knows where to get surgery for the amount of money that I have. It all became very possible. I knew that surgery could cost $15,000 in Portland. Since I couldn't afford that, I decided I wouldn't put energy into thinking about it. However, Rita had done a lot of research about the surgeons in Thailand. The one we went to charged only $5,000.

Did you do your surgeries at the same time?

Rita: We planned to, but I was laid off from Imagebuilder Software about six months before we were supposed to go to Thailand. I got a job the following Monday, and my boss asked me if I could delay the trip, so I canceled. But Andrea went the day after Thanksgiving 2000 and had her surgery on the 5th of December.

Did you go with her?

No, I had to stay and work. It was a very tough thing for me to go through. I really went on the skids, for about three weeks. I can remember lying in bed, just absolutely crying hysterically, saying, "Why is this happening? I did everything by the rules. I jumped through every hoop. Why can't I have my surgery?" But I knew that my time was coming.

But what about your penis? Wasn't that a pretty big attachment?

Andi: Some people see surgery as mutilation. For me, it wasn't like I hated that appendage, but I didn't have a great deal of attachment to it.

So it was like a microwave?

Yeah, like a cheap microwave. I was never a high performer with it, in terms of my relationships. It was just kind of like going through the motions of doing what you're supposed to do.

Were you in a lot of pain?

Not really. After you've had several hundred hours of electrolysis on your face, pain is a very relative term.

When did you two decide to get married?

Andi: Prior to my surgery, in February of 2000, I got hit by a car and was out of commission for three months. The shocking thing was that, even though I was on Rita's auto-insurance policy, because I was not a spouse or relative, the personal-injury benefit that we paid extra premiums for was not available to me. That's why we did a domestic partnership when it became available.

So after the operation, were you instantly a female, legally?

Andi: There is a whole process where the court signs off and says I am now legally female. So I had this paper that says I am legally female. At that point, Rita had not had the surgery.

When did you guys get married?

Rita: Aug. 12, 2001, in the garden of It's My Pleasure.

Andi: We were going to Thailand at the end of August, because that's when Rita's surgery was set up and I was going to go with her to be her support person. So it was like, "Well, let's get married and we can have a honeymoon in Thailand."

Do you guys feel different now that you're married?

Andi: I value a certain security in a relationship.

Rita: I feel very secure. I mean, love is one of those things that's impossible to define, and the love that I feel for Andrea--and the love that I feel from Andrea--is radically different than the love that I had in any of my prior marriages.
David Rosenstein: Saving the World, One Tooth at a Time
Harvard, Berkeley, Columbia. Professor at Oregon Health & Science University, chair of the department of public health dentistry. Author of more than 120 papers and journal articles, recipient of numerous professional awards. You could say that Dr. David Rosenstein, D.M.D., M.P.H., M. Phil., has an impressive résumé.

Rosenstein, 57, has put that experience to good use, as dentist to Portland's poor. For 28 years, as director and founder of the Russell Street Clinic, he has taken care of patients other dentists wouldn't touch: the mentally ill, the drug-addicted, the uninsured. When the AIDS epidemic blazed through Oregon in the early '80s, Rosenstein became one of the few dentists willing to treat HIV-positive patients--men and women so vulnerable to infection they could be killed by a canker sore.

WW reporter Chris Lydgate caught up with Dr. Rosenstein at the Russell Street Clinic shortly after a budget-cutting band of lawmakers chopped adult dental care out of the Oregon Health Plan, which provides health care for 400,000 poor and working-class people in Oregon. The cuts go into effect March 1.

Willamette Week: What will the cuts to the Oregon Health Plan mean?

David Rosenstein: They will throw all those people out of dental care if they're an adult.

All 400,000 people?

Correct. Anyone who is an adult. No dental care, nothing. Now you take someone who doesn't have an immune system, who is HIV-positive, and you're not paying to take care of an infection? That's penny-wise and pound-foolish.

Why's that?

The money that you save at the dental clinic will be spent in the hospital. And I wouldn't mind spending it in the hospital if they would goddamn do something! But what are they going to do? They're going to write you a prescription. Meanwhile, the tooth that's got all the bacteria is still rotting in your mouth. What do you think is going to happen a week or two later? It's going to blow up again. This won't ever end; you can't break that circle.

They can't extract the tooth?

No.

They can't give you novocaine?

NO!

Why not?

They don't know how to do it! They're not dentists. They know about as much about taking a tooth out as you do. All they can do is treat the symptoms. They can't treat the problem.

But most dental problems are not life-threatening. Why not cut back services in times of a budget crisis?

Look, I've got patients who won't open their mouth because their front tooth is all black with decay. We are a society that judges people by their looks. I have an 18-year-old patient who was HIV-positive from birth, and all of her teeth were decaying in the front. I fixed those front teeth, and she started crying. She said, "I've never been able to go out and feel good about how I look before." How would you feel about yourself if you had a black hole in the front of your mouth? You tell me!

But should taxpayers foot the bill for that?

I'm going to ask you one question: When was the last time you went to McDonald's and the person who took your order didn't have any teeth? When was the last time you went to Safeway and the person who was boxing your goddamn groceries had no teeth? Never. You can't get a job without your teeth. So I want to know how we're helping people if we can't give them teeth. We need to take these people who are not working and get them something so they can work and be productive--not for the sake of our budget but for the sake of our society.

What kind of money are we talking here?

It's a $600 investment if they're missing all their teeth. But this is not just a dollars-and-cents issue. This isn't a question of how we save the most money. This is a question of how do we salvage people? How do we make people become productive members of society and feel good about themselves? And it isn't by walking around without teeth.

But given the state's limited resources...

You can't do everything for everybody. I understand that. You know, some people just don't know what it's like to be on the other side of the fence. They don't know what it's like to have a toothache and not to be able to get care. And we're not saving any goddamn money! If we're going to save the money, fine, but we're not saving any goddamn money. I mean, what are you thinking? You've got to be nuts! These people are crazy! They have no sense. I'm pissed. I am really, really pissed.

Earlier, you mentioned being on the other side of the fence...

I grew up in Boston on welfare in a housing project. My parents were both handicapped. We're talking big-league stuff: multiple sclerosis and muscular dystrophy. My mother used to take me to the window and say, "Study hard, because if you don't, all this will be yours." In the housing project, there were gangs, and I kind of got involved a little bit with it and had a little trouble with the police.

What kind of trouble?

Well, stealing cars, breaking and entering, stuff like that. Nothing violent. It was all property crime.

How old were you?

I was 13 when I went into reform school.

Were you scared?

I was so young that when I got there all I was concerned about the first day was whether they were going to make me drink milk. I didn't like milk. When I got in there I was protected by this huge African-American guy, and he befriended me. So I was never raped in reform school; nobody ever bothered me. I was pretty fortunate.

Tell me about the transformation from a 13-year-old car thief to a kid who wants to go to college.

I always wanted to go to college, so I could be rich enough some day to rent an apartment. I had never walked into a single-family detached home until I was in college. I didn't know what the term WASP meant. I had never met a white Protestant. After high school, I went to Boston University on a full scholarship. I had no money. I had to work 40 hours a week loading trucks.

Why did you become a dentist?

What I wanted was a way to make a living and get out of the housing project--that was my only goal. I wanted to go to law school, but I couldn't, because I'd been in trouble with the law. So I ended up going to dental school.

So you were just looking for the quickest route to a good paycheck...

That's it. I didn't want to live in a housing project any more.

So what hooked you on dentistry?

I was in my third year of dental school, seeing my first patients at a community health center in Charleston. And this mother brings in this boy, he couldn't have been much older than 10. I don't remember what I had to do for him, maybe it was a filling. When I got done, I looked at the kid and said, "We're all set," and the kid didn't say anything. I said, "You're not going to tell me thank you?" The kid didn't say anything. So I said, "Well, you can't leave until you shake my hand." So he shook my hand and they left.

About 10 minutes later, the dental director came up to me and said, "What exactly happened when you treated this child?" And I said I didn't do anything. I mean, I had spent enough time in reform school that I knew that line. He said, "I need to know every single thing that happened from the time you laid eyes on this kid to the time he left. Everything. I don't want anything left out."

So I said that I took care of the kid, and then the kid left. And he said, "You're leaving stuff out," and so I just said that the kid didn't say thank you and really wasn't talking, so I told him he couldn't leave until he shook hands with me.

He said, "Did you know that child was autistic?" Nobody told me he was autistic. And he said, "Did you know this kid had never touched another person before? The mother was so overjoyed when he shook your hand that she was in my office in tears."

I went home feeling pretty good that day. I felt like I had reached this kid. I felt like I had done something, and that feeling hasn't left. I have that feeling every day I'm here. Every day I come here there's at least one patient who says, "Dr. Rosenstein, thank you for taking care of people who are HIV-positive, we really appreciate it." And you can't write a check for that.

The Russell Street Clinic is located at 214 N Russell St. Call (503) 494-6824 for details.

Nikki Williams: Talking Straight through a NorthEast Passage
When Nikki Williams agreed to be featured in a film about gentrification and affordable housing four years ago, she didn't take it seriously--she didn't think anyone would see it. So when NorthEast Passage, a documentary made by Portlanders Cornelius Swart and Spencer Wolf, sold out multiple showings at the Kennedy School this summer, she was one of the most surprised.

The impeccably researched and nuanced film focuses on the granite-edged Williams, a single mother, social worker, native Oregonian and outspoken community activist who received a home in the Boise-Eliot neighborhood through Habitat for Humanity. As the issues played out behind her, Williams proved to be one of the most compelling Portlanders on the big screen since Danny Glover relocated here.

In the film, we see her protecting her daughter, Anna (then 10), ordering her to private school so she won't succumb to the 'hood. She speaks out against more low-income housing in Boise-Eliot, even though she herself benefited from this kind of program. And her defense of gentrification as a means of cleaning up the neighborhood struck some as counterintuitive. WW reporter Caryn B. Brooks recently caught up with Nikki, now 33, and Anna, 14, at their house. Over pie and coffee, the mother and daughter talked about what life's like since their star turn.

Willamette Week: Did you like the movie?

Nikki Williams: I didn't like me in it. We all looked like crap.

So besides how you looked, how did you feel that you came off?

A lot of people can't take my in-your-face style, but for me, sometimes being tactful is just being cowardly. The thing that is so weird to me about the documentary is how many of these white, righteous people are so upset. We say we're diverse, and I think that's a bunch of bullshit, personally. We're really open-minded only as long as you say what we wanna hear and you say it the way we wanna hear it.

What kind of things in the film do you think white people were upset about?

They'll say, "You don't know shit about the 'hood. You can't come in the 'hood and think you're gonna change it and make it right." Well, I'm new to this community, but I've been black all my life and a resident of North Portland all my life. I don't think they wanna hear that. They're like, "What do you mean? I volunteer for such and such, and I work at such and such." That's all great and wonderful, but the point I'm trying to make is, you work at a social-service program, but the only people of color are the janitors. You work with all black people, but yet you don't have any people of color in your personal life. How serious are you about your fight to change things? That's what I was trying to do. To get under this layer of bullshit of "we're diverse" that we all wear as our protection. When I try to have that deeper conversation, that's when they get uncomfortable.

What was the response among African Americans?

A lot of the black people are angry. It's like, "There's just some things you don't tell white folks." What a lot of people don't understand is the documentary didn't show one-tenth of just how terrible it was. That's the part I didn't want to be seen. I didn't want it to just be a walking stereotype of what the 'hood is like. If I wanted to make the ghetto look crazy, if I wanted to make blacks look bad, I would have let them keep all of that stuff in.

What else did they cut out?

They didn't show the three hours I was on my porch being threatened and harassed. I mean, I was under attack on a weekly basis. All the neighbors would be sitting out calling me "bitch" and threatening me.

So you were concerned about how black people would be reflected in the film?

It's not because I didn't want them to necessarily think bad things about blacks. It was more that I didn't want anybody feeling sorry for me.

Were there any other concerns from other blacks?

Some are upset 'cause I didn't get paid to do this, and to me that's just crazy. For me, it was never about money.

You were really honest about your personal life in the film.

I had to be. I wanted people to understand I'm not some snooty wanna-be-white black girl movin' to the 'hood. I know what it's like to be handcuffed. To have to spread your ass and cough at the police station. I have a criminal record, too, so I have the right to say this.

You were in an abusive situation.

Totally. I've had my ass beat. I know what it's like to be stomped to the ground. My daughter didn't come from this wonderful, white-picket-fence world. That's why I put it in there. I'm of this, so I can speak to this.

Anna, in the film, when your mom sent you to Holy Redeemer school, you complained it was boring...

Anna: It didn't have all the drama of public school.

What drama?

Well, like throwing stuff in class and yelling and talking back to the teacher. What I realized was that wasn't the norm, even though it was in the public school that I had been to.

You like that kind of chaos?

Actually, when I got used to not having that, then I started to not want it.

Do people recognize you on the street from the movie?

Anna: Once when we were in Southeast, we were shopping, and this lady just kept looking at us, and finally she said, "I just saw the movie you're in. Oh my God, it's so good to see you."

Nikki: I was happy she finally said something, 'cause I thought she was watchin' us thinking we were gonna steal stuff! Actually, it's blown my mind how many people have seen the documentary.... It's still hard for me to take this seriously. I didn't do this wanting to be known. I didn't do this for the fame. I sure as hell didn't do it for money. So for this to have become as big as it is, it's just hard to swallow.

Have the problems you were battling in the documentary gone away?

There are still drug dealers and lots of prostitution around here, but on a much lower level. They're pushed to the ends of the street versus all around us.

Has the film raised expectations of you? Do people look to you more as a leader?

You know, just because I spoke out in the documentary does not a great spokesperson make me.

Have you ever considered running for public office?

No.

Why?

I'm a trench fighter. I need to be close to the people, close to the issue. That's where my heart is.

Are you sick of talking about gentrification?

I'm sick of talking about the surface level of gentrification.

What do you mean?

They have a lot of home-ownership programs, but they're not benefiting the people from around here. I still see that people moving in are the ones who can afford to live here. And I just don't see that as being an answer. To get in here and do the real work means rolling up the sleeves and getting out of your comfort zone and having some real conversations and dealing with the institution of racism.

Do you ever consider leaving Portland?

Nikki and Anna simultaneously: All the time.

Where would you go?

Nikki: Actually, I've been trying to get to Africa for about a year. I've been trying to find a volunteer position or something like a work exchange. I've had this need to connect to the world on a bigger level, and I just don't see that happening in Oregon or necessarily on this continent. If anyone knows how to get us the hell out of Oregon, please let us know [by emailing blaqwemoon@yahoo.com]. I've earned my wings.

WWeek 2015