Coming Out:
Mara's Story
Mara Kiesling grew up in Harrisburg with her family and seven siblings. Her father was heavily involved in politics which in turn got Mara into politics at a young age. Her family was not raised to be religious, but her father was which may have influenced some of his political ideology. She knew she was a girl at age 3 as she would wear her sister’s brownie uniform in the hopes that it would show her family that she was a girl. However, her aunt told her father in reference to Mara, “no you’re a boy, you have to be a boy” which led Mara to not discuss her identity again until 1962. Due to the lack of computers available at this time, her parents could not look to the internet for help. This led Mara to feel that she was different and should feel shame.
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During a college break, she worked for a pollster and eventually dropped out of college to work for the polling firm full time. Eventually, this work burnt her out and she started working at a survey research center and also started selling Buicks. Eventually, she wished to pursue higher education to become a college professor, so she and her partner at the time attended Harvard University. Mara was heavily influenced by the idea that gender was binary and that boys had to be boys and girls had to be girls. However, as she moved into adulthood, it became more difficult to outrun her identity. She eventually broke up with her partner in 1996 and went to a transgender conference in Massachusetts. This was a two-week conference in an LGBTQ+ friendly area which provided the safety to explore this identity, even when it was still dangerous in other parts of the country. Her relationships up to this point were never to try and trick herself or conform to an identity, they were valid, and feelings were present.
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Mara discusses the lack of information available on the transgender community
and the importance of Tapestry Magazine (audio only) |
She started to develop friendships with the local transgender sex-workers, and this was the beginning of her experiences with the transgender community. She found the Tapestry Magazine, which was put out by the International Foundation for Gender Education, that discussed transgender experiences and listed support groups one could attend. She went to one of these support groups in 1989 and met with a transgender person, which was scary for her, but provided her with her first experience within the community. She also attended the Tiffany Club, another transgender support group that required a rigorous investigation to show that one was there to learn.
Mara discusses the importance of AOL and the Gazebo chatroom for
the early transgender community (audio only) |
A photo of Mara at the December 2007 Pride Festival
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In 1989 the internet was starting to emerge which helped to build and connect people within the transgender community. There was an AOL chatroom known as the Gazebo where the transgender community could congregate and interact. She flip-flopped on whether or not she wanted to go through with her transition as many people in these online forms had told stories of how they lost everything when they transitioned, so this was one of Mara’s fears. However, after a radicalizing experience at the Southern Comfort conference, she knew that she needed to transition as well as become an activist within the transgender community. She started seeing a gender specialist and eventually came back to Harrisburg because of the support in the area to transition.
During this time, she began to meet a lot more people in the transgender community through the Renaissance Education Association, a support group that was hosted at the MCC church. Around this time Alberta Hamm had taken a case to court that would allow transgender individuals to choose their own name, and after some pushback, she won the case, and the transgender community gained this right. Mara moved on to lobby for Equality Pennsylvania and to help pass a State Hate Crime Bill in 2001 and 2002, which was supported by both Democrats and Republicans. She eventually started a lobbying group called Gendered Rights Pennsylvania which helped to raise her status as a lobbyist as she now held a title. This was important as prior to 2001, there was no attorney that dealt with transgender rights.
During this time, she began to meet a lot more people in the transgender community through the Renaissance Education Association, a support group that was hosted at the MCC church. Around this time Alberta Hamm had taken a case to court that would allow transgender individuals to choose their own name, and after some pushback, she won the case, and the transgender community gained this right. Mara moved on to lobby for Equality Pennsylvania and to help pass a State Hate Crime Bill in 2001 and 2002, which was supported by both Democrats and Republicans. She eventually started a lobbying group called Gendered Rights Pennsylvania which helped to raise her status as a lobbyist as she now held a title. This was important as prior to 2001, there was no attorney that dealt with transgender rights.
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Prior to all of this, Mara was scared to come out to her family but knew it was necessary as she states that she was living two different lives and it was becoming harder to keep up with. Since there was not a lot of information available, she wrote a 30-page document detailing her experience to provide to her family. She started by telling her friend and then her family so that they could all discuss it together. This news was received with very positive support with her family wishing they knew sooner so they could help. Her parents even helped to choose the name Mara for her which was a defining moment in her life. Her siblings accepted her identity, but at the same time she lost some of her clients because of this.
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Mara discusses coming out to her friends and family and how
supportive they were of her (audio only) |
