Digital Transgender Archive

Interview with Denise Sudbeck

Denise Sudbeck is from Downeast, Maine in a small fishing village on the coast. She identifies as a bisexual trans woman and was assigned male at birth. Sudbeck’s family moved to Skowhegan, Maine when her father got a job there in electronic maintenance. Her mother was her first-grade teacher. She comes from a very conservative, evangelical family. She had two brothers one of whom died of alcoholism when he was 40. Sudbeck is a recovering alcoholic herself. She’s a high school dropout, leaving home at 16 during the late 1960s. She wound up living with an aunt and uncle for a while in Charlotte, North Carolina where she got her GED. She describes herself during this time as rebellious, drinking and doing drugs. She spent a lot of time on the road, even hitchhiking between Maine and Florida twice within one year. She’s lived in 11 different states, and she is a navy veteran in the submarine service. Sudbeck has been married a few times and describes herself as “the poster child for serial monogamy.” She repeatedly tried to prove her masculinity by marrying and having kids to somehow fix herself. She’s been in the closet since she was young. She came out as a trans person and sobered up in 2010 after a suicide attempt when she was married to a woman. Her wife knew about Sudbeck’s crossdressing but couldn’t handle Sudbeck transitioning publicly so they separated. Sudbeck been on estrogen which has positively impacted her. She is currently married in a lesbian relationship. She has a dual major in Psychology and History from what was then the State University of New York, and she went to seminary school in Maine for her master’s. She is currently working on her dissertation on trans liberation theology for her doctoral degree in Ministry at the United Theological New Brighton. She also facilitates a group for trans identifying people at her church called Transcend.