Trans Man Finds – And Creates – Refuge In His Family’s Small-Town Cafe

Speaker 1: 00:00 Jackson, California is acquainted gold rush era town with brick buildings on its main street. It's pretty quiet except when you walk into Rosebuds cafe. Rosebuds is a place that shouts its values from its bright green walls, huge family portraits and tons of posters and flyers announcing programs for the arts, supporting local homeless initiatives and advocating for LGBTQ rights. KQ Edis. Elisa Morehouse tells us this place has become a refuge for people who don't always feel accepted. Rose beds is like a beam of light. Mary's son ty works the front of the house like he's done for nearly 30 years. I started on the cash register when I was six years old. It's like my sibling rosebuds. It's like the fourth child. Mary says the family really started supporting LGBTQ issues when her daughter Megan came out as a lesbian in high school and this community, it was really scary. She worried her daughter would be bullied, but that was just the beginning because Thai stood out even more. There was the controversial neon pink baseball cap, the short hair dyed purple that provoked a teacher. Speaker 2: 01:13 He pulled me aside on the way out to PE one day and told me that I was Speaker 1: 01:16 ruining my life. I knew, I knew then that she was wrong, but what I didn't know was how those, her saying that would still be a part of my consciousness 30 years later and that's obscene. I mean, I was just a fat little girl. I was just trying to be okay because he didn't know it then. But ty is a trans man playing with his look. He learned about himself. There was a Mohawk clothes cut up and pieced back together, decorated with safety pins. For me, my parents Speaker 2: 01:50 giving us the room to express ourselves through our physical aesthetic was a, was a matter of my survival. What else would I have done if I couldn't cut my hair? I maybe would've been cutting myself. Speaker 1: 02:03 I've Ashley for for it since he was a kid. Ty's moved through the restaurant with ease and authority. Today he's wearing a kilt. His full red beard braided where you up for [inaudible] hill this weekend. Awesome. Did you go already? One of the neat things about Speaker 2: 02:18 having grown up in a restaurant is that I was able to feel powerful school never felt, felt safe, and that's not healthy for our brains. Speaker 1: 02:26 As high school began, ty knew he was attracted to women. Ties started the gay straight alliance at amateur high school and it caused a just an uproar in the community. It was just like I did not go to glee. Okay. That was about my life. A school was rough. Yeah. His tires were slashed on campus. Speaker 2: 02:46 I mean, I have been followed home. I have been run off the highway. I had dog smeared in the front seat of my car parked in front of my childhood home. It was, it was difficult times. Oh, I mean, I had friends whose parents grounded them from me, so it didn't seem unusual that there were people that weren't interested in dining with us. Speaker 1: 03:08 In a school of only 800 students, ty says he collected over a hundred signatures in support of starting the club as high school wound down. Ty still didn't know the word transgender, but he did something really dramatic for a new teenage driver. Speaker 2: 03:23 I just couldn't stop myself. I cut my driver's license in half right over the gender marker. Speaker 1: 03:28 Soon after going off to college, Thai sat his parents down and said, if it's all right, you know, I think I'd like to be your son. Now, after college in Santa Cruz and a few years in Sacramento, Thai, return to Jackson, he loves the country and the rolling hills of Amador county and wanting to be part of his family's farm to fork efforts at Rosebuds and coming home and returning to the sanctuary of the restaurant. Speaker 2: 03:54 Aye have experienced that. A great deal of trauma at points in my life where my brain was still developing. Speaker 1: 04:04 He says he deals with PTSD and agoraphobia and went through periods when he couldn't work. Speaker 3: 04:13 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 04:14 one night after closing, rosebuds hosts a potluck for the Tri County LGBT alliance, which puts on a pride parade in nearby Murphy's ties. Mom, Mary welcomes the guests. It's people like you that have made the world safer for my baby. And so I appreciate you. If you're ever scared or worried, just know that there's someone out there in the world who appreciates and from the bottom of my heart, thank you for being an ally or for being out and welcome. Speaker 3: 04:45 Okay. Speaker 1: 04:48 16 year old miles goes to the youth group. Ties started in the region but is attending the potluck for the first time. Speaker 3: 04:55 I'm basically here cause like I think meeting a lot of people who are going through the same thing helps like you know, develop like who I'm going to be when I grow up. Speaker 1: 05:04 Miles. His mom is here in support but struggling with pronouns. Speaker 3: 05:08 I love her to death. So [inaudible] keep correcting. Don't worry. Whatever miles decides to be. That's choice. Her hills. I'm still happy. No worry. We'll get there. Speaker 1: 05:28 Help from gatherings like this one at Rosebuds ties says that's what this space is all about. We try to Speaker 2: 05:35 use the bounty that comes through the cafe and reinfuse it right back into Jackson. You know the saying we are the salt of the earth. I never understood what that meant, but, uh, it was explained to me to be that we have to flavor this space. Speaker 1: 05:53 Ty says, no one should hold back their flavor. I'm Lisa Morehouse in Jackson. Speaker 4: 06:03 [inaudible].