Bill Trevaskis: Imagine you're in a movie theater full of people.
Right away you notice differences in clothing, skin color, hair style,
symbols of religious or cultural affiliation
that they choose to display.
However, beyond simple observation, we're not able to see
the thoughts, feelings, and experiences that make us each outliers.
You're listening to the 12 KNOTS podcast.
I'm Bill Trevaskis.
Feeling different can be challenging but sometimes that challenge is self-imposed.
As a kid growing up in suburban Southern California,
I was never under too much pressure to join a club, make the honor roll,
or play sports.
With few a thousand students in my high school,
there were plenty of kids to fill each position.
At the K-12 school in North Haven, the small island town where I live,
basketball is the school's only varsity team sport.
It's a unifying force during the long winters here.
So one night at a game I asked fans one simple question.
To you, what does basketball mean to this community?
Participant: Good to keep the spirits up in the winter time.
Participant: I would say it means getting together
so that the older crowd knows the younger ones.
Participant: I think it's been a long standing , really important thing
in this community.
Participant:. A feeling I have for basketball:
just to love to go watch basketball
Participant: Basketball in the winter here provides the entire community
with something to do on Friday and Saturday nights, with entertainment,
and also every once in a while something to feel really good about.
Participant: There is just a long, long tradition of basketball here
and for me, probably one of the biggest things is that it's the arena
where the community has always come together
in the midst of the long cold winter and it makes people happy.
Bill T.: You might think that there's a lot of pressure to
play a game like basketball in a town as small as North Haven.
And to many high school students, there is.
Jake Greenlaw: Hello, my name is Jake Greenlaw.
Bill T: This is my good friend, Jake. Jake G.: Check, check.
Bill T.: Jake grew up on the island
and he graduated from North Haven Community School in 2003.
Jake G.; such a long time ago.
Bill T.: I started out by asking Jake
these same question I asked the fans at the game:
What does basketball mean to the community of North Haven?
Jake G.: Growing up out here, it was definitely a big thing in the school
and everyone was kind of pushed to play the sport.
All of the older people around me at that point
were very into basketball.
They had all -- my father and all of his classmates
had played basketball,
and he would look through all the pilots and see how...
Bill T.: The Pilot he's referring to the school yearbook.
Jake G.:... bad ass they all looked, and
it was very important to play basketball out here.
I was just never that into sports.
I always wanted to be that guy who was really good at basketball.
I mean, because I had -- all my friends around me were into basketball.
They all play on the team and I was just into other things.
I was just like not into sports. I've never been into sports.
Bill T.: Was there anyone else in your class who didn't play?
Jake G.: Not really.
No, it was like ... I mean, I played pee-wee basketball.
My dad coached pee-wee basketball actually.
But I did enjoy the just hanging out with your friends,
and when we would go away and on trips,
I would love the bus ride and going out to restaurants.
Eva Hopkins: I was never really ... definitely wasn't a player
and I wasn't into going to the games either, so it's still very mysterious.
I am Eva Hopkins.
Bill T.: Like Jake, Eva graduated from North Haven Community School
and knowing her during that time, I wondered what she felt about basketball.
Eva H.: ...it wasn't super high on my list of things
I really wanted to leave the house for.
To be fair, there wasn't a lot on that list anyway.
Bill T.: So why, I mean, maybe there's one reason,
maybe there are several, but why didn't you play?
Just to be clear, you didn't play at all.
Eva H.: I didn't play at all.
I think actually I went to one practice maybe,
I don't know if it was pee-wee or if it was older.
It might have been pee- wee, but I went because I almost felt like I had to.
But at the time, I was also very involved in music,
and in particular in the piano
and learning as much as I could about how to play
and that was really where my passion was.
And the first exercise that we were doing,
I don't know,I must have caught the ball funny and it like
I think it bent back my thumb or something.
It was kind of a realization that oh, yes, death can happen to you.
There's danger and I just I didn't want to break fingers
or then lose practice time with my instrument
and it just wasn't worth it for me so I was kind of done.
I might have been the only girl in my class who didn't play.
As far as it went in school,
there were plenty of other people in the girl's team at the time
that I could have played,
and it wasn't if you don't play there's no team.
Yeah, it just made sense for me not to play.
Jake G.:I think people are more accepting now in a way.
Bill T.: They're more accepting to the choices people make?
Jake G.: Yeah.
Bill T.: So, did you ever personally experience any backlash
or was it just in your head.
Jake G.: You know I was lucky because people already knew me.
I was already a theater guy. I was already a music guy.
People knew I was good at something.
But I feel for the kids that haven't quite found themselves
or anything that they really like to do yet
and are just like -- feel so uncomfortable in themselves,
but like out here, and if you don't have the right group of friends
and if you're not doing one of those things, it can just eat you alive.
Bill T.: After talking to Jake and Eva, I wanted to get a different perspective.
The population at North Haven Community School
right now is pretty small.
For example, there are only five girls in the whole high school.
Ashlynn: ... I saw that earlier and I got really scared.
Bill T.: I spoke with a couple of them about basketball.
Ashlynn: Ashlynn and I'm a senior nd I'm 17.
Shyanne W.: I'm Shyanne Waterman, I'm a junior in high school and I'm 16
Ashlynn: I don't know, I don't really feel like I was ever forced to do it
but people definitely didn't like it if you didn't play.
Bill T.: What do you mean?
Ashlynn: Like if you didn't play,
they felt like you had an issue with them personally,
like another kid who wanted you to play and you said, "No, I don't want to play."
They were like, "Oh," and they would take it more personally
than just the fact you didn't want to play.
It was mostly students I feel like.
I mean the coaches kind of understood like it's not for everyone.
It's just kind of like, everyone would do it
just to do it and have fun for the few kids
who did actually really want to do it
since there were so few kids.
Bill T.: Did you play at all?
Ashlynn: Mm-hmm), I played for two years.
Bill T.: Freshman and sophomore year?
Ashlynn: No, eighth grade and freshman year.
Now that there are so few kids that it's that they're a lot tougher on the kids,
that they want every single person to play,
because just one kid saying I don't want to play
makes a difference on whether or not there's a team of the year.
Bill T.: Have you ever felt personally, I don't want to say ...
have you ever just felt guilty about not playing
or have you ever been made to feel guilty about not playing?
Ashlynn: I did my sophomore year because I couldn't play
because I injured my shoulder the year before
during the basketball season and shouldn't have even finished that season
but since I did, I injured it more and wasn't able to play again the next year.
Then people just didn't understand that
because they couldn't physically see something wrong with me
like I wasn't in a cast or something, so they were like,
"No, you're fine to play,"
and they thought I was just using it as an excuse not to play.
Yeah, I felt they definitely tried to like guilt me into playing and they said,
"Oh, even if you just go to practices and do this,
it's because you don't want to play in the games or something."
I always enjoyed going to see everyone play.
It's just basketball wasn't my thing.
Sports have never really been my thing at all.
I don't know, I enjoyed going and seeing it,
it's just play, I'm not athletic at all, it's just embarrassing.
Shyanne W.: I always feel guilted and pressured into playing
because I played my freshman, sophomore,
and I probably would have played this year had there been a team,
because everyone is like, "Oh, come on, you're tall. Play basketball!"
Bill T.: So you're saying the culture hasn't really changed around
pushing people to play?
Shyanne W.: I mean, in my experience, no.
I don't know, just because it's like kind of a North Haven thing.
Everybody is super excited for basketball season
because that's the highlight of everybody's winter weekends usually.
If there's not a team,
then everybody is not as excited for things during winter.
Bill T.: Is there a girls' team this year?
Ashlyn:There's not going to be, no.
Bill T.: Not enough girls?
Ashlyn: No, not enough high school girls, no,
so they're going to do a junior for RC or something like that instead.
Bill T.: Would you have played had there been a team?
Ashlyn: No. I don't know,
it will be interesting to see what actually happens.
Barney H: I think the amazing thing about this community is
it doesn't matter whether the team is good or bad,
they come out, they cheer for them, they applaud every kid.
So in a way, when I look back on it I think that's probably the best thing.
It isn't that we're going to have championship teams.
We have a community that supports the kids doing what they're doing.
Bill T.: Lack of interest in sports
is one of the many hidden diversities that exists on the small island.
Here's another one that's becoming less hidden.
The idea for this story came when a friend at the Historical Society
gave us a photocopied article from a 1901 issue of The Courier-Gazette,
the newspaper that still serves Rockland, Maine
and the towns around our island of North Haven.
Courtney: "Carvers Dual Existence.
Strange case at North Haven astonishes the world.
Young man who wore female apparel for 30 years
publishes statement that he belongs to the opposite sex."
Bill T.: My wife, Courtney, one of the producers of this show
realized that this story was a piece of a bigger puzzle.
What is it like to be in the QuiltBag,
an acronym for non-heterosexual or cisgender identities
in a place as small as North Haven?
Courtney: Arthur Lesley Carver, the person from the headline
was raised as a woman on North Haven in the late 1800,
and at 30 issued a sworn affidavit
that he actually was and always had been a man.
The reason for the duality isn't specified but the article mentions a nurse
who noticed unusual conditions at his birth.
So it's reasonable to assume that Arthur was intersex.
Lillian, as he was known, was described as having a fair complexion
and striking eyes,
and was considered an example
of the fair and buxom daughters of the island
and had many male suitors.
A religious conversion inspired Arthur to claim his male identity,
which he did a safe distance from North Haven in Dorchester, Massachusetts.
It's fascinating and a little terrifying
to think what the reaction back home must have been.
The Courier describes Carver's fear of creating a sensation.
I wondered, do contemporary North Haveners have the same fear?
Jacqueline C.: Chris and I, just before we came up here
were talking about growing up.
We were best friends and we did everything together
and I remember when he talked about coming out
and I was like, "No, no, no."
It was so funny because now we like look back on it,
and it's like, "Okay, we're both gay."
Jacqueline Curtis, 31.
Chris Emerson: Chris Emerson. I'm 30.
It was pretty clear that I was gay and I didn't fit into the straight stereotype.
My brother knew as well.
I always, when we played together, I was always the princess.
Jacqueline C.: I feel like I probably had an inkling from a really young age
but I didn't really understand what that meant.
And I think it's actually when I started to kiss boys
and I didn't have that sort of butterfly feeling,
I actually got really nervous and had a lot of anxiety
and I remember feeling like
"Well, this doesn't feel like I think it should feel."
But as I got a little older, I was able to kind of kiss boys
and I made myself think that that was what I wanted it to be.
Once that the relationships developed,
I had obviously more feelings than just gut feelings,
but it still wasn't always the right feeling.
Stacy Beverage: My name is Stacy Beverage.
I'm 43 and I've lived on North Haven basically all my life.
I was born here down at the clinic and moved away for about 12, 13 years
and lived in Portland.
And now, I'm back.
Stephanie: I'm Stephanie, age 23,
and I've lived on North Haven: basically my whole life, summered out here,
and then moved out here permanently in second grade.
Stacy B.: I was actually married to a man
and we were living out here.
And I just knew something wasn't totally right
and went and started visiting a friend in Portland who I was not dating.
She was just a really good friend from college.
And she had just come out as gay and suddenly it just sort of clicked that
"oh, that's why things aren't working well in my relationship."
But I mean, it was all good because I'm still great friends with my ex-husband
and he was great about it.
And as far as -- I mean, my family was great about it.
I've never really had any backlash from it,
which is sort of surprising
because you think, a small island off the coast of Maine,
maybe they would be really conservative but everyone's been great.
Tobias McKenzie: I mean, yeah, my story is kind of anti-climatic too.
I realized pretty early on, probably like in middle school
and then just kept it to myself
because there wasn't a huge community of LGBT anything out here.
And so, then I went to college in Burlington, Vermont
and got to experience new and different things
and came back here and recently have come out
and really it's just nothing interesting I guess.
Courtney: The anti-climax, as Stephanie put it,
of North Haven's willingness to accept its out community members
was a pleasant surprise.
The same was true for another young North Havener who I spoke with.
Tobias McKenzie: I'm Tobias McKenzie and currently, I'm 26 years old.
I'm a trans male.
I moved to the island when -- right before my ninth birthday.
I have several other siblings
but I was the oldest kid in the house growing up.
I grew up with a little brother.
We moved to the island when my parents retired
and wanted to build their dream house.
I always had a sense that something was different.
I think one of the most significant points
was that growing up I had no idea I was trans
because I had absolutely no way to understand how I felt inside.
So I predominantly suppressed it.
When I moved to California and to San Jose at age 20,
I started looking around more and started to get a clearer picture
of what was going on inside my head.
Growing up, it was always a struggle
because I hated being treated like a girl and I had no idea why.
Courtney: You were angry a lot.
I had you as a student and you were often very angry.
Tobias M.: By the time you got there, yes, I was.
That was related to a few different things.
But I think the main problem was that there wasn't a whole lot of diversity
apart from individual personality.
So I had no examples.
I had only ever heard of drag queens, which I didn't identify with at all.
I appreciated them for who they were in their craft
but I felt no connection, so it was no hint to how I felt inside.
I remember when I was 13 or 14, I looked in the mirror
and I asked myself if I should have been born a boy.
That was the only time I'd ever spoken it loud,
and I immediately went
"I am not in the right place to explore that particular line of thought.
I have no knowledge of it, no real understanding,"
and so I kind of just pushed it down.
And it wasn't until they told me what a cisgender person felt like,
and cisgender being someone who feels like the gender they were born into ...
when someone explained what that was, I was like, "Oh, that's not me."
And so, that started my more in-depth investigation
and discovery of what I was going through.
Courtney: When you communicated that to your family on North Haven,
did they have a reference point?
Tobias M.: Absolutely none whatsoever.
My parents are very loving and did the very best to be open minded
but it was not something they were ever ready to hear.
They weren't expecting it at all.
And so I came out to my mother by telling her
I wanted breast reduction surgery.
And I had a very large chest, I was double D.
And she being the second gen feminist, thought wonderful, awesome for your health
and for not wanting to deal with big boobs.
And I said okay, well, I kind of want them reduced all the way.
And so she said, "Well, what does that mean?"
And I said, "Mom, I'm transgender. I'm a male at heart.
I want to get rid of my boobs. I want to live as a boy."
And I guess that night she did a lot of research.
Courtney: You were in your 20s then?
Tobias M.: Yes, I had just turned 21 and I was --
I kind of grew my support network at school
because there were a lot of people who were involved in the community
and understood what it could be like to come to terms with something
as obviously life-altering as that.
So I really built up a base of support there
and then I came out to my mom and dad.
Courtney: So then, as you transitioned,
you came back to the island during that process.
How was that? What was that like?
Tobias M.: It was funny.
I didn't tell anybody that I was transitioning.
I told no one from North Haven.
I had a few friends on Facebook, but mostly I kind of expected
just to do this return and have everyone go “wait, who are you?”
I had gotten top surgery in early 2011,
and when I went back I had started taking testosterone
and it had started to kick in, you know, a few changes here and there.
But apparently, I sent a letter to my mom
and I put Tobias McKenzie in the "from" column.
And she was asked by a few people who saw the envelope
who Tobias McKenzie was.
I suppose the idea was
there was a great scandal of the long lost sibling.
And she was very open about it.
She was always very supportive.
And she told them, "No, you formerly knew her."
And then -- so when I came out, the weirdest thing I remember was
I came out and I expected it to be this huge surprise.
I expected people not to know,
not to have any idea who I was or what had happened.
And instead, everybody, everybody knew who I was.
Everybody knew my then chosen now legal name, Tobias.
And the hilarious thing was,
no one called me by my old name or by female pronouns
and this is when my parents couldn't keep track of it.
They were using my old name, they were using female pronouns.
And that was really weird to deal with at home
and then walk out in public and everyone was getting it right
It was just ... it was really funny.
Courtney: Yeah.
So it's been okay coming back to this place where you felt like
you had no reference points
and now you are maybe a reference point for somebody?
Tobias M.: Oh, absolutely.
It's strange but I feel like for the most part, people decided:
"Oh, so that's why you were a bit different."
Courtney: Tobias' point about that lack of a community,
a reference point on North Haven
was something each person we spoke with mentioned.
Sue Campbell: Out as I want to be is a nonprofit based in Rockland, Maine.
Courtney: I spoke with Sue Campbell --
Sue Campbell: My name is Sue Campbell
Courtney: -- whose organization now called OUT Maine
seeks to provide that community
for the isolated QuiltBag youth of mid-coast Maine.
Sue C.: I think growing up LGBTQ anywhere is a challenge.
I think when you add in the rural factor,
it adds a whole n’other layer.
Society sets certain norms and in a small rural environment,
those norms are probably even more stringent
and people don't understand diversity because they've never seen diversity.
There are percentages somewhere in the neighborhood of about 5%
are the numbers that are reported here in Maine.
We know that those are low.
So if you look at your population, you can assume that
about 5% of those folks are going to be LGBTQ in some way, shape, or form.
When I first started doing this work about a year ago,
we had three out of the nine mainland high schools with GSTAs, we now have --
Courtney: GSTA stands for Gay/Straight/Transgender Alliance.
Groups like this provide community support and advocacy for students
who identify within the spectrum or want to be allies.
North Haven Community School has had a very small GSTA since 2015.
Sue C.: -- you know,lesbian or gay or, we're seeing a lot more of the students
that are coming out as transgender as well.
I think at a lot of these small communities you see people who --
they know people as individuals so they accept them very easily.
But when you suddenly are thinking of things outside of that,
it is when it becomes much more challenging.
Courtney: What are some of the risk factors
that affect LTBTQ youth in a rural area?
Sue C.: Well, isolation is one of the biggest ones.
We see a lot of youth that are not accepted by their families,
they're not accepted by their communities,
so they become homeless.
Very quickly, the homeless population here is very high.
They have a much higher suicide ideation rates than their peers.
And so it is a very tough population to work with
because they are of much higher risk of harming themselves, or being homeless,
and not getting the necessary supports.
Courtney: What kind of resources do you think would be most helpful
for students on North Haven
who think that they might be on the LGBTQ spectrum
or want to be allies?
Sue C.: I think the biggest thing
that community members here on North Haven or the schools could do
is to allow the students to know that they're open and welcoming and accepting,
and that there are safe people and safe spaces.
If the youth feel that they can't be safe,
then they're not going to be willing to tell anyone
that they may be experiencing feelings,
whether that is feelings of sexual identity or gender identity.
If they don't feel like they can be safe then they're not going to come out.
So, creating inclusive and welcoming communities
is probably the biggest thing that you can do.
If you have students that do come forward,
then it's providing the appropriate supports to them,
but always leaning to the open and understanding
of wherever it is that they are at the time.
Courtney: What do you think that
LGBTQ adults in a community like this can offer to the youth?
Sue C.: They can be role models.
If you can be open about who you are
and present a good, strong role model for students,
regardless of what your experiences might have been,
one would hope that LGBTQ adults would want perhaps the experiences
that youth would have to be different
than what they may have experienced when they were young.
Bill T.: North Haven's population reflects a growing diversity
in religious identity, sexuality, gender identity, and race.
And for the most part,
while people within those groups might feel a little isolated,
their presence is welcomed and embraced.
But in 2015, Courtney and I went to Brooklyn, New York
to speak with someone who had a very different experience on North Haven
several decades ago.
Pete Beveridge: Pete Beveridge, age, I'm 85.
Bill T.: Pete Beveridge is part of a huge North Haven clan
with members in the summer community and year-round community.
Historically, the family spent summers on North Haven
in their compound called The Colony,
which is just down the road from where I live.
Pete wrote about his family's history in a recent book also called The Colony,
which he said he wrote as a way of healing a rift in his family
described in his first book, Domestic Diversity.
He told us his story as we sat in his Brooklyn apartment.
Pete B.: -- a good friend, Peter Cooper, he invited me
to a party being given up in Harlem
at the home of my future wife, Hortense,
or Tee as we called her, was an African-American
in the sense that Barack Obama is.
She had a father who was born in Africa, in Liberia.
Her mother was an Afro- American from Virginia.
Courtney: What year was that?
Pete Beveridge:'52, '53.
Bill T.: So, let's back up a little bit.
Pete talks about meeting, falling in love with
and eventually marrying Tee, an African-American woman in 1952.
Pete's story before and after this point
is pretty fascinating.
Pete B.: Well, my political awakening, if you would call it such,
has actually started with my senior year in high school
when I became involved in the progressive party,
which is a third party that was started by Henry Wallace at that time.
He ran against Truman in 1948.
When I went to college,
I became the president of the Young Progressives at Harvard.
So my politics, my left-wing politics when I was at school
didn't sit too well with my family,
but for the most part, we just agreed not to talk politics
when we were together.
It didn't really affect my relationship at that time.
Bill T.: Pete goes on to describe
one of his first true loves, a Jewish girl named Dorothy.
He mentions the amount of anti-Semitism
that existed at the time, not just politically
but within his own family as well.
Pete B.: I had to stay up until I was maybe 16 or 17.
I really wasn't aware of the fact that they were "different" from me.
They were just myclassmates.
But it was actually several years later that my mother wrote me a letter
explaining, just after I broke up with Dorothy,
explaining how relieved she was.
I'm not sure exactly how the quote went, what it was.
And I don't think that I am anti-Semitic
because it's not that Dorothy had the characteristics of Jewish people
that we didn't like her.
It was because I never felt
that she was completely open and forthcoming with me.
Bill T.: Although the relationship didn't last very long with Dorothy,
it drove a surprising wedge between Pete and his family,
and that wedge would be driven further by subsequent events.
Pete B: I had joined the Communist Party when I was at Harvard,
and upon graduating, I decided to continue my education
at Columbia where I went the following year to get an MA.
And I made that decision mainly because the Korean war was going on at that time,
and I was draft bait,
and if I had left school I would have been drafted.
Courtney: You and Tee began dating
and when did you introduce her to your family?
Pete B.: She had an apartment on 125th Street,
which she shared with another couple.
By the end of the semester at Columbia, I had moved in with her.
That was the spring of '53.
And our period of courtship, if you will, coincided with the period
when Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were being tried and convicted
and eventually executed.
And that was a very traumatic point for people in the party
and in the left wing at that time,
because it was sort of a feeling that if this could happen to them,
it could happen to us.
So Tee and I spent a lot of weekends traveling down to Washington
to picket the White House
and demonstrate to save the Rosenbergs.
On several of those occasions, I stayed with my parents
who were living in Alexandria at the time,
and brought Tee out to introduce her to them.
A year or two later when I married Tee,
my mother said to me:
"Well, you know, the first time you brought Tee out here,
I knew what was going to happen."
My father and mother were conflicted in ... during their
or I should say liberal inclinations to accept my relationship
and an extreme reaction
on the part of my father's siblings, my aunts, and uncles.
When Tee and I decided to get married in 1953,
we told my parents
and sent out notice to my uncles and aunts.
And we started receiving letters from my relatives
who never wrote to me before explaining why I shouldn't marry Tee.
My uncle Arnold, my father's brother, who was a business man
and had more money than the rest of the family
was paying the taxes on the property that the family owned.
And he threatened that if I brought Tee to The Colony,
he would pull out and stop, withdraw his financial support.
This was pretty important at that time.
So I decided not to push the confrontation
and stay away from The Colony with Tee.
After I married Tee in 1953,
there was a period of about 20 years when I didn't go back to North Haven.
I had very little relationship with my cousins or my aunts and uncles.
As a result, there is a big gap in my family relationships.
There's a whole period of time
when I didn't know or didn't relate to my family.
This going on top of my childhood
where it was a very large and closely knit family,
it was very hurtful and made me very sorrowful
because I loved North Haven and I loved my family.
Bill T.: It wasn't until the 1970s
that Pete was able to return to North Haven and The Colony with Tee.
But in the 1980s they separated.
Pete continues to visit the island to this day
and we've enjoyed some nice visits with him and his family.
Any community large or small benefits from all kinds of diversity.
Here's Sue Campbell again.
Sue C.: Oh, it adds all sorts of really interesting things.
People get to experience things that are very different
than what they grew up with or what they know,
and it broadens their horizons
and really opens their eyes to other things
that are different in other places.
Bill T.: Special thanks to Avery Waterman, Harold Cooper,
John Emerson, Barney Hallowell, Janice Jones, Jake Greenlaw,
Eva Hopkins, Ashlynn Ames, Shyanne Waterman,
Nan Lee and Emily Greenlaw at the Historical Society,
Jacqueline Curtis, Chis Emerson, Stacy Beverage, Stephanie Brown,
Tobias McKenzie, Sue Campbell, and of course Pete Beveridge.
Both Pete's books, Domestic Diversity and The Colony
can be purchased at northhavenmainehistoricalsociety.org.
12 KNOTS is written and produced right here on the island of North Haven
by me and my wife Courtney Naliboff.
Music is composed and performed by yours truly.
Thanks for listening.
Transcript used in the subtitles was made possible by a Grant from CCACaptioning.org