My ‘About Me’ video just dropped an hour ago. If you want to blow your mind, check it out.
It’s 3 minutes and 30 seconds or so of amazingness. Shot mostly on location in my exotic and luxurious Sparks, Nevada office. I also got to spend a lovely day with Debbie last Saturday, looking for rainbow things and taking photos and video footage all over Reno. I learned how to splice together film and audio, how to make the sound loud and quiet and how to add text and credits to a video.
I have to give credit to Nick Gapp, Media Production Specialist, at Dynamic Media Lab at UNR, who helped me with my video when I had gotten a little too “extra” and got lost in the sequence. He also showed me the ins and outs of sound mixing.
There is a lot of footage that did not make it into the video. There’s even more that did, but was removed. We tried to go to places that I’d mentioned in my blog like Our Center and Reno Little Theater and things that I wrote about in my blog, like rollerblading, and people that I met, like the Twampson Sisters and Dino Valentino, and, of course, my Debbie.
Please take a look, like it on YouTube, and maybe I’ll make some more!
This is the second installment of my interview with Ms. Sherrie Scafidi, the president of the Transgender Allies Group, or TAG. TAG is mostly a lobbying organization for transgender rights, but they provide extensive resources for those who are seeking legal gender identity changes, including a flow chart on how to do it.
Please go back and read the short article from yesterday to learn about her story coming out as a transgender woman.
She also helps those not in the community by educating, speaking, and acting as a “standardized patient,” which is someone who plays the part of the patient at a medical school and guides the med student or nurse practitioner in the proper language and treatment of a transgender person. There is a great article from my very own UNR where Sherrie is quoted and photographed.
What are some of the things that you have done with TAG that you are particularly proud of?
2 biggest
A transgender person no longer has to publish their name change in the newspaper. When she changed her name in January 2017, it had to be listed in the newspaper. The law which changed that was passed in the 2017 legislative session one month later, in February.
A transgender person no longer has to prove by a third party to the DMV that they are who they say they are. She said that when she changed her driver’s license, she had to get a third-party doctor to verify who she was. Now, Nevada is one of the few states that has an X gender and no verification now needed.
Sherrie also works full-time currently and is the president of PFLAG, the first and largest organization for LGBTQ+ people, their parents and families, and allies. She also has her own consulting business where she gets paid to educate and speak. She works with local security firms to educate their guards on the laws surrounding gender and bathroom use in Nevada.
In what little free time I can’t imagine she has much of, she loves to cook. She said that she spends all her money on shoes, cooking stuff, and model railroading. She also still has all the equipment from when she had worked as a gunsmith.
Sherrie identifies as a lesbian. She laments that the local lesbian community is not as welcoming to her as a transgender woman as she wishes they were. As a member of that community, I was saddened by that statement but I also recognize that, though a generalization, my experience is similar. I believe it may be due to a lack of understanding (and maybe even empathy?).
Sherrie wants people to know that if they are transgender, they can help out the community by being open and visible if they are brave enough. She would love to start back up her half-hour radio show about LGBTQ individuals that was cut short by COVID-19. She sees the value in growing a national audience for something like that.
2017 signing of Nevada Senate Bill 201 protecting LGBTQ youth from “conversion therapy”. Sherrie is second to left. Credit: http://www.transgenderalliesgroup.org/
Little did I know, all those years, pushing the rink floor and the pavement on those rollerblades through the University of Illinois campus quad in Champaign, down the Lakefront, and all through that great city of Chicago that I would have to have that conversation with my parents that I was dating a woman.
Since then, I’ve rollerbladed the hills of Wyoming, the parks of Las Vegas, the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and now the Parkways of Reno/Sparks. Reno and Sparks have some amazing bike trails which double as rollerblading heaven.
Terry, from Reno 911 knew how great these streets are for rolling. Especially by the Taco, Taco, Taco.
Credit: WordPress GIF
Just this past weekend, I drove myself down to the Rosebud Nature Study Preserve at Veterans’ Parkway and Pembroke Drive in Sparks. There, I strapped on me ole trusty K2 blades and rolled for a pleasant 20 minutes south, over creeks, past fields of cows, passing underneath the Parkway, and to South Meadows Parkway, where the trail ended.
I could have kept rolling down the perfectly manicured, smooth sidewalks which line this southern part of Veterans’ Parkway, but I didn’t know if my new knee agreed. I had my ACL replaced this time last year and I’m still trying to figure out what it will allow me to do. I turned around and made it back to my car. It was about 7 miles in 40 minutes. Not bad. And I didn’t have to worry about traffic except at well-kept stoplights.
I hardly noticed the cars passing by. I saw a LOT of friendly bikers. It was one of the first beautiful days of Spring. I sang 80’s songs to the cows as I paraded past.
If you love the 4-wheeled boots like I do, I encourage you to check out some of these trails. Wear your brightest neon clothing and rainbows while you sweat and firm up that booty. See you out there!
Pictures of Debbie and Erica. Pictures courtesy of Erica Pionke.
Before I go off running and tell you all about the Reno LGBTQ scene, I need to help you understand where I fit into the LGBTQ community. I am a cisgender female with a loving cisgender female partner named Debbie who I’d like to introduce you to today.
My last post talked about my coming out experience with my parents in the summer of 2010. This was right before I moved out to rural Wyoming (is there any other kind of Wyoming?) for 1.5 years.
While in Wyoming, a friend suggested we take a trip to Las Vegas for a youth sobriety conference. I had never been to Las Vegas, and it seemed like a good reason to go.
While at the conference, I went to a workshop for the LGBTQ community, which I had been craving desperately during my 15 months in Wyoming. This is where I met Debbie.
Debbie was on the panel of speakers. She was in her late 40s at the time, so she didn’t quite fit the young person demographic. She knew it and used this opportunity to try out her stand-up comedy routine. She had me hooked.
I grabbed her number after the workshop and asked her to meet me at the dance party that night. That was the last time I would talk to her until…
…I found out that I had obtained a job in Las Vegas. Since I knew no one else in Las Vegas, I called her. She told me that she would “show me around town.” She’s so confident.
After I arrived in Las Vegas in late May of 2012, we would meet up for coffee and she introduced me to her friends. Over time, we became good friends. She was always available to make me laugh or make me think.
We started dating after getting to know each other, and she has continued to make me laugh ever since. From Las Vegas, we moved to Arlington, Virginia, and then here to Reno in April of 2020. We’ve been together going on 10 years, through a total of five surgeries and one COVID-19 pandemic.
We are very different people. I like to run, hike, ski, and paddleboard. Debbie likes to people watch and chill in her kayak when I can get her on the water. I’m an introvert and Debbie needs people. We come from different backgrounds and even age groups. Thankfully, Debbie has this ability to connect with anyone, no matter their background or age group.
She’s constantly introducing me to her new friends, even with people whom she has just chatted up on a park bench while I was off running around. She’s kind with an authenticity and spark that make people immediately trust her. And she’s funny. Oh goodness. She can break tension in any room.
Did I mention that she’s a fantastic cook? Her street tacos are requested all over. Expect delicious enchiladas when you’re in the hospital or your family is having a difficult time.
She is the most generous person I have ever known.
I could go on and on and on about Debbie. Really. Mostly, I just want you, my reader, to know that I do not show up to this party alone.
And Debbie wants you to know that I’m taken. She also wants you to follow me on Twitter.
Erica Pionke's Guide to Reno LGBTQ 