Digital Transgender Archive

Interview with Joy Michael Starkey

Joy Michael Starkey identifies as a white genderqueer non-binary trans person and was assigned female at birth. They grew up in the suburbs of Vancouver, Washington which is right across the river from Portland, Oregon. They grew up with politically active, progressive parents that both went to Quaker college. Starkey has become more radical than their parents. Starkey doesn’t see themselves having children. They always sensed they were gender non-conforming. They enjoyed climbing the monkey bars while wear their dresses when they were in grade school. They describe themselves as a tomboy and by high school they had a strong sense that they didn’t fit into either gender category. After finding concepts like genderqueer and having a friend who used they/them pronouns, things made more since for Skarkey. While in college at a Quaker school in Indiana called Earlham College during National Coming Out Day, they came out to their parents as bisexual. When Starkey went home for Thanksgiving, it ended with Starkey running away from home, never intending to go back. They go home still about once a year, talks to their parents a lot, and they are on fairly good terms now. Starkey has a good relationship with their younger sister who is also trans. They were forced to quit their job in the Women’s and Gender Studies department after they filed a discrimination claim against their boss. They talk about butch culture, trans misogyny, radical lesbian feminism, and bathroom issues for trans people. Starkey started the GSA at their high school and are part of Black and Pink, a prison abolitionist group. Most of their activism for many years has been around Palestine.