Katherine Today

After writing my last film review on TransAmerica (March/April 2006 issue), I received an email from the editor, Tiffany. I was surprised to see it was from Katherine Connella who read my review. I wanted to learn more about Katherine (Kate) so I contacted her and asked if she would be willing to educate others on her life as an entertainer, Christian, author and hermaphrodite. More than willing to share her knowledge, Kate and I conducted the following interview.

Andrew: Your name has been mentioned a lot in recent times in relation to the film, TransAmerica. Please state the role(s) you played regarding the script and production of the film?

Katherine: I became friends with the writer/director of TransAmerica in 1992, shortly after I moved to Los Angeles. Duncan Tucker and I hit it off at once (we met at a cabaret performance by Jim Bailey) and were instantly friends. A little under a year later, Duncan was house-hunting and told me that he would buy a place with a guesthouse if I would move into it. He did and I did. Duncan and I had been living together for about four months. I hadn’t told him about my situation or my upbringing. I hadn’t really even considered it. But one night, when I was dancing around a manic mood where I was nervous and agitated, I blurted out that I was a transsexual. This intrigued Duncan greatly. Over time, I shared my whole story, childhood photos, etc. He was already working on a screenplay but he began almost at once to start putting together thoughts, impressions and ideas for what became TransAmerica eventually. He wrote the first draft, I read it and critiqued it and then he went back to working on the screenplay he had been previously writing.

Katherine as a Child

Our living together ended on a bad note. My note, of course. I chose to leave. I chose to cut him out of my life. I chose to change my phone number TWICE when he tried to reach out to me. I didn’t hate him and I wasn’t angry with him.

Finally, I see my contribution to TransAmerica as being much like that of an irresponsible father. Yes, I provided the seed that made it originate. But Duncan carried it and nurtured it and brought it to fruition. Gee, I just hope it doesn’t sue me for back child support!

A: In a conversation you and I had earlier, you stated you have not seen TransAmerica yet. Why not? And, what are you expecting/hoping?

K: The reason I haven’t seen TransAmerica is that, after getting married in 2002, I decided to leave Los Angeles. Daniel and I live out in the country in the Midwest. No theater within five hundred miles has screened TransAmerica (‘family values’ are really big here). Since none of my friends back in Los Angeles were gracious enough to send me their Academy Award screener DVD’s of the film, I have already pre-ordered it from Amazon. It didn’t even occur to me to ask Duncan for a disc of it, mainly because he’s been around the world two or three times in the past year with this film. I can wait and see my own copy.

As far as what I’m hoping or expecting to see, that’s hard to say. The Web has featured several scenes from the film and, after all, I did read the first two drafts of the script. I can confidently say that I’m expecting to get what I get: a witty, surreal-yet-realistic glimpse of a part of humanity that has seldom been portrayed outside of an exploitative sense.

Katherine in Kindergarden

A: In your book, Sugar and Spice and Puppy Dog’s Tails: Growing Up Intersexed, you inform your readers of the difficulties you had in relation to your gender-identity. For our readers who are not educated in this area, can you briefly define what intersexed is?

K: We were all taught that there are two genders for breathing creatures. In theory, that is correct. But throughout time, the creation of a fetus has been complicated. “God doesn’t make mistakes,” people say (or “Nature”, if you prefer). But these mistakes happen all the time. An intersexed person received conflicting messages while they were growing inside the womb. In my case, the fact that I had a twin who miscarried right before the third month of pregnancy is believed to have been the problem. All fetuses are female until the third month of gestation. If the genes and chromosomes dictate that it will remain a female, nothing happens. Of course, there are more people out there who are also intersexed but who have radically different stories than you can imagine. Most of them, like myself, remain anonymous all their lives. In my case, I felt that God has presented me with a number of phenomenal challenges (intersexed being one of them) that most people will not or cannot discuss.

A: When did you notice you were different?

K: From the moment I could put thoughts together! Seriously, there was not one moment when it made it clear. For one thing, I had no concept of being a boy. I’m saying that, from the moment I can recollect my first memory until I started school, I thought I was just another girl.

My first day in the first grade, I went to the bathroom. I had never been inside a bathroom to that point that wasn’t marked “girls” or “women”. My mom had always taken me to the bathroom when out in public. So, of course, I went to the one marked “girls”. A teacher saw me do this and immediately hauled me to the principal’s office. When he questioned me why I went to the girl’s bathroom, I replied, “Because I had to use the bathroom.” When asked why I didn’t use the boy’s restroom, I answered in a shocked voice. “Because there might be b…boys in there!” They chuckled and sent me back to my room, with my teacher explaining to me that I had to use the boy’s bathroom from then on.

Katherine in 4th Grade

A: You mention in your book that you were raised in a Christian environment. How big of a part did religion play in your adolescence? How big of a part does it play now?

K: I was raised in a very Christian, Southern Baptist household. I was very involved with church all during my childhood. Like my sexuality, I never once questioned whether or not Jesus existed or the wisdom of His words. Once I became an adolescent, however, I backed away from organized religion in a big way. After all, I’d been a very naïve, sheltered child and liked it that way.

Because I had always been discouraged from having female friends, I had male ones. Not so surprisingly, given my difference, I attracted almost exclusively gay males into my life. And that pattern continues on today. Many of my friends were also Christian, and endured tremendous mental anguish over their homosexuality and what it meant to their relationship with Christ and the Afterlife. This horrified me. I couldn’t understand why, if one’s mind and soul dictated an attraction to your own sex, this meant that you were damned to hell forever.

A: How did/do you feel when members of your religion openly criticize diverse lifestyles?

K: It’s quite hard to answer. I don’t affiliate myself with a particular Christian denomination so I can only assume you’re referring to Christians. How do I feel? I feel angry and hurt and upset. I’ve seen several people’s lives ruined because those around them were so inflexible in their outlooks that they automatically rejected their friends or family members because of their own beliefs. The New Testament has practically nothing about sex at all. Jesus certainly is never quoted about it in any form.

Katherine as a Teenager

A: In your formative years, did you always feel accepted by your family? If no, why not?

K: NO! Of course, it depends what you mean by “accepted”. I was an only child. My mother always loved me unconditionally. My father, however, was deeply puzzled by me. We were quite close in the beginning but by the time I was in the second grade, an invisible curtain descended between us that remained there until his death two years ago. When my doctors talked to my parents when I was around twenty three and informed them that I was NOT a transsexual (as I had been classified about two years before) but that my condition was something that had started long before I was born – I thought it would be a relief to them. And it was, I guess. It was much easier for my mother to accept that God had made me like this. For my Dad, though, I don’t think it helped. He really had wanted a son.

A: What were the hardest moments in your life? And, in those moments of distress, what was your relationship with God like?

K: Well, I’ve had more than my share of distressing moments. Not only was I compelled to periodically (and lamely) commit suicide because of my bi-polar illness, but I have been the victim of rape and/or assault more than anyone else I’ve ever heard of in my life. I have no idea why. I’ve never viewed myself as a victim. The worst one was when I was seventeen. He held me in his car and kidnapped me. At that point, I truly did not expect to see the following day. But what was my relationship with God like? I prayed a lot, of course. But you know? It might have been good that I didn’t spend that time pleading for escape. I’m still here, so God always made sure I would make it through in one piece. And that’s really what I wanted, anyway.

With Actress Sandy Dennis in 1978

A: Can you comment on your current relationship with God?

K: Of course, the flippant answer would be, “Why don’t you ask Him about our relationship?” The truth is that, in my viewpoint, we’re all guessing just a little about our standing with God. I’m far from perfect and far from pure but I believe I’m in a good place with Him. My husband and I both adore studying all the rich but veiled history of the religion of Christianity. We’ve studied about the Dead Sea scrolls and this newly-discovered Gospel of Judas that was recently announced. I think it’s wrong to blindly adhere to everything that is in the Bible and blindly reject other gospels that are circulating out there but were removed from the “official” Bible by the Council of Nicea back in the fourth century.

A: Why the entertainment industry?

K: I wish I could say why. It was just something that was a part of me from my earliest memories. Music has always been around me. My mother and father both played musical instruments and my Mom sings. Two of my Dad’s brothers were musical performers in the 1950’s and 1960’s. My Dad’s aunt was even a singer in circuses (have YOU ever seen a singer in a circus? I haven’t!) and in vaudeville. Even before I started school, I was very active in my church’s children’s choir. I got quite a bit of attention and praise for singing. And what child doesn’t respond to such positive feedback? I was also star struck – not by people so much as the events themselves. TV, movies, even Broadway appealed to me as a child. It was just something innate in me and the only thing I really felt I could do well. That, and writing.

A: For an audience who condemns diverse lifestyles, what would you say to them?

K: I would quote, “Physician, heal thyself.” Then I would quote, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” You’ll never convince me that Jesus came to Earth and died just so the rest of humanity could point accusing fingers at each other for the next two thousand years, so far. I love picking up a red letter edition of the New Testament and just going through and reading the quotes attributed to Jesus. This man wouldn’t care about diverse lifestyles. What he wanted was mankind to love one another as they would love themselves.

A new Look in 1979

A: If you could go back in time: What would you say to your younger self?

K: Gee. Where to begin? I would explain to myself what I was, first of all. I went through more than twenty years of pain and confusion over that. I would tell myself that the doctors who want to try and alter me through medication are dead wrong and to refuse to submit. And most of all, I’d let myself know that – no matter what I would have to endure in the upcoming future – I would survive it all and live to happily tell the tale.

A: What words of encouragement can you give to others who are trying to finding God and happiness?

K: Don’t look to others to tell you how to find God. He is all around you. In every dandelion, in every blade of grass. My feeling is that we’re all born connected to God through a spiritual umbilical cord. The trick isn’t to find Him, it’s to recognize Him in everything that surrounds you. Understanding and accepting Jesus is a bit more work and looking to others to assist you with that could be a good idea. Now, about happiness. If you think about it, the two are really one and the same. If you’re aware of being a child of God, you have a big head start on happiness. But…and oh, I know how trite I’m about it be here…happiness can’t be found. It has to find you. And once you’re ready to let go of all the programming that dictates why you CAN’T be happy, you might just wake up one morning and discover that you already are!

The True Katherine in 1982

A: If you could ask God one question, what would it be?

K: Hmm. Boy, that’s a tough one. I guess it would be this: Did you really appear to the Hebrews all those times in the Old Testament or were they just bragging? Now if you did, why did you stop? Do you have any idea what kind of impact you would have on the planet today if you appeared or spoke or somehow materialized just once? Oops. That’s more than one question, isn’t it?

A: Describe your life now. Outside of your career, what do you do?

K: Not all that much. And that’s fine with me. As I said before, after just about all my adult life living in the larger cities of the world, being out in a bucolic setting with deer and squirrels and fresh air is terribly therapeutic. My husband and I live with two cats in a little cottage and we’re very happy there. My husband, Daniel, is blind. That doesn’t render him incapable of living a full life, though. After all, he is a graduate of Notre Dame University and lived on his own for some time. I can honestly say that I’ve never been happier or more contented in my life. And really, I don’t know what more anyone could want for their time on Earth.