Coming Out Stories with a twist: Barbra "Babs" Casbar Siperstein, a married, successful businessperson turned donor and activist, says "One Mo' Time!"
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By Barbra "Babs" Casbar Siperstein
Contact
Barbra "Babs" Casbar Siperstein: Elected President of NJ Stonewall Democrats, she is also Vice-Chair of Garden State Equality and Political Director of the Gender Rights Advocacy Association of NJ.
Active nationally, she serves on the Executive Board of National Stonewall Democrats as Chair of the DNC Relations Committee.
She currently serves as a member of the NJ Civil Union Review Commission and the Edison Twp Municipal Alliance Against Drug and Alcohol Abuse.
Widowed in 2001, she takes one day at a time, enjoys spoiling her grandchildren and wishes they can enjoy a life where people learn to communicate, take responsibility for their actions or inactions, and have respect for each other!
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COMING OUT
My first coming out was the hardest and took several years and it turned out to be only the beginning of a long, challenging, difficult, yet in many ways a wonderful and bittersweet journey. I first had to come out to myself!
I suppose I should start in the early Eighties, times were pretty good, business was good, I was married to my "best friend" and we had 3 children, who were bright, attractive and moderately challenging to raise.
In my forties, I addressed my midlife crisis driving a Jaguar, racing and breeding horses and doing things I yearned from my youth!
But there was something more, deep inside, this itch, this yearning to somehow reverse roles, to somehow be, act and dress as a woman.
I read, I dreamt, I had to act, this was not going away! Thoughts, fantasies, and memories that had long been suppressed slowly began to appear and persist.
I'm very lucky that my wife was also my best friend. We had the confidence to be able to talk to each other, and so I was able to come out in the late eighties and express at least the symptoms of my gender variant disconnect.
We explored my gender identity together and reached out and found other middle age, middle class couples with whom we developed friendships and a kind of informal support for each other as well as local support. Our real life experience grew from attending private weekends in a resort to organizing dinners in restaurants, to organizing weekends in public resorts as well as cruises.
We strived to do everything we did before, only now as two women. Our new friends were more interesting as well! We were very careful to keep things "stealth" so never went out in-state. (We still had many "close calls"). We joined the Imperial Court of New York, where we were the "odd couple", eventually becoming husband and wife "Princesses". We developed friendships with many of the members and spent time with several of the gay men in Fire Island in the summer. For several years we did a balancing act spending more time with our Gay Lesbian and Transgender friends and less with our straight friends.
MY POLITICAL COMING OUT
In 2000, we were invited to join a new transgender rights advocacy group in New Jersey. Other than being aware of a Hoboken police lieutenant who was harassed and forced to resign while trying to transition, I had no history in transgender civil rights, but was interested. We hosted the first meetings of GRAANJ in our condo hideaway. (Ok I needed my own closet space and was tired of dressing and putting on makeup in the Suburban doing 60 mph on Rte.202).
In the spring of 2001 as a member of the Royal family of the Imperial Court I was invited to volunteer for an Empire State Pride Agenda (ESPA) banquet featuring Hillary Clinton as the main speaker. That summer I was outraged to discover that ESPA was only supporting legislation to protect straight acting gays and lesbians, yet had the chutzpa to ask transgender and gender variant gays to "volunteer" for their fundraisers. I attended the historic meeting with Matt Foreman of ESPA and transgender activists in NYC including Sylvia Rivera. My education began in earnest.
In late August of 2001, Carol developed a cough that would not go away. At the end of September, the impossible occurred, she was diagnosed with cancer and on October 30 she passed away.
Six years later, I still feel the shock. At some point I realized that as a single transperson I was no longer a first class citizen anymore. Indeed, if gays and lesbians were 2nd class, how was I perceived? Not acceptable! My natural instinct was to fight back, but to fight I had to learn the rules. I observed the political arrogance of gays in New York vis a vis transpeople, and conversely the lack of a unified transgender political presence. I vowed such would not happen in New Jersey.
One person who encouraged me was the president of the Log Cabin Republicans who had recently separated from her long term partner. Our long dinner conversations, often closing restaurants, gave me a background in local and state politics from a general and LGBT and bi-partisan perspective. I became active in NJ Stonewall Democrats and began to educate and argue for transgender inclusion in ENDA which brought me to heated discussions with the local HRC Governor. In the early fall of 2002, they had a 2 tiered (100-1000) fundraiser for Bob Torricelli who was running for reelection to the US Senate. I decided to "go for it", the VIP extra hour private reception with the Senator. So, with an envelope filled with ten crisp new 100's, I was surprised that they could not accept cash! Huh, this is New Jersey, isn't it? After creating a little stir, they did accept my credit card and I did have some face time with the Senator as well as mixing with the folks in attendance. What was clear is that the Senator thought "sexual orientation" covered transpeople ... so much for HRC's lobbying.
I befriended Elizabeth Birch at an event in NYC later that fall, and at their banquet in early 2003, she made a point to tell me that her Board voted to support transgender inclusion in ENDA and was very encouraging. 2003 was a busy year, NJ Domestic Partnership Task Force Steering committee member, NJ Stonewall Democrats VP , Director of GRAANJ and oft times being in the right place at the right time and making certain whatever event I attended and paid for, there was a message. At the HRC banquet in DC, I met several Board members and received "feelers" for their Board, but I really felt a mutual uneasiness with several of the people.
2004 was busier. I worked with Steven Goldstein and his Lambda Legal town meetings for marriage equality. Discovering that HRC supported the non inclusive ENDA, I met with HRC's Political Director, and we returned their "Equality Grant" to GRAANJ in protest of their "dual" policy. That action impressed a former HRC member who funded the returned amount. For my work on domestic partnerships, I received the "Honors award" from the NJ Personal Liberty Fund. The DNC convention was quite an experience for networking, connecting with politicians and party officials, thus laying a serious political foundation. Attending my first Stonewall Convention, I met Barney Frank and we determined we were "mishpacha".
Although I was very much "out" as a GLBT political figure, I was doing a balancing act and working in my male persona ... very interesting psychology of human perception, since I was on a slow and steady transition for 15 years. I had joined the Board of National Stonewall Democrats in 2005, and as Vice chair of Garden State Equality (GSE) and Director of GRAANJ, was actively lobbying for legislation to add transgender protections to NJ's Law against Discrimination.
PUBLIC OUTING
In the summer of 2006 at a GSE town meeting which featured children of LGBT people advocating for Equality, my daughter spoke both eloquently and dramatically and her picture was featured in the state's largest paper. The article mentioned that Jana Siperstein was the daughter of Barbra Casbar! With a circulation of over 300,000 ... that was my public outing and I now had to explain to my employees the whole story!
It was time and I soon started to make the name official, no turning back! For up until that time I had to prove to myself I could stand on my own two feet as a woman and accomplish politically what I had to do without the help of my old male identity. All bets were now off! In our unified LGBT lobby day we were unable to obtain a face to face meeting with the Senate Majority leader, whose support was necessary to move the legislation. I called his Chief of Staff, told her that my "Irish Uncle" said I had to speak with the Senator, ... we met the next week, he signed on as a co-sponsor and the rest was pretty much history as we took care of some minor blips along the way. In December, the legislation passed 102-8!
As far as giving to politicians, I've tried to maximize the impact given a limited budget. If a national figure is also present and there is an opportunity to get a 2-fer, there is always an incentive to go for the VIP event. I can educate both, plus network with others that are present. I recall one prominent congressman calling my old male name at work a couple of times seeking $ (he went by name on the checks), I kept playing with him, telling him I support him and would see him soon, then finally came out to him. He knows I help him. Now he knows that people such as Rush Holt have raised the bar for my pecuniary support and he has to step up, first!
Copyright 2008 Barbra Casbar Siperstein all rights reserved.
