22 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY june 22-28, 2023 www.montereycountyweekly.com style instead. In terms of surgery, she is only thinking about it, and points out soberly that “any surgery is a risk.” There’s also the cost—$45,000. Lopez “passes” as trans, appearing to most people as a beautiful young woman. Still, she has been harassed, as many young women are. During her 18th birthday party in a park, a rude guy on a bike requested a blow job. When Lopez said something back, he freaked out, “because my voice is quite deep.” When not looking for work, Lopez draws, goes for walks, visits vintage shops and hangs out with her best friend April. Meanwhile, Lopez feels just like Marilyn Monroe must have felt in her beloved ’50s, “a misunderstood girl looking for love.” “She speaks to me,” Lopez says about Monroe. Tee Anderson Gender: Man Pronouns: He/Him Age: 39 Residence: Monterey Talking to Tee Anderson is rewarding for two reasons. First, he jokes all the time. His humor is self-deprecating, deep, bordering on absurd, as when he says he won’t get a penis because it could “fall off.” “Maybe if I was 20,” he says, hands in his pockets, his hairy face wrinkled in comical pondering. The second reason is his readiness to communicate in the most authentic way he can find, and that means that he is ready to talk—openly and wisely—about his vulnerabilities: childhood trauma and mental illness. When talking about his past he touches his eyes frequently, rubbing them as if to remove fatigue. He shares his story from The Shop in Monterey, where he paints after he is done with his day job in tech, as a software engineer working as a contractor to the U.S. Department of Defense. Anderson is one of the most visible trans men in Monterey County, perhaps because he is an artist. “I did art in school and I didn’t think I was that good,” he says. It was his wife, Amy Anderson, who pushed him back in that direction. She helped him with two crucial decisions in his life: transitioning, and re-becoming an artist. In his art, he moved from oil on canvas to acrylic, and another important part of his craft is painting surfboards. His style is orange and blue-soaked; his landscapes are psychedelic wonderlands where dragons and magical sea creatures, but not much more in terms of representation, are allowed. For the most part, it’s just clashes of colors, waves, bright spots. Anderson had his first exhibit in 2021 and continues to work after hours, often documenting his work on Instagram. Like Luketish, Anderson is originally from Pennsylvania. His parents divorced when he and his twin sister were young. Childhood abuse led to PTSD, he says; he was diagnosed as bipolar and his wife, a psychiatrist, suspects he has ADHD. He didn’t get along with his stepfather, who always called him “clumsy,” and left home when still a teenager. His childhood included hearing family members describe people in the queer community using slurs. Proving that he is equal to other men was always important to Anderson, even before his transition. He fought to show he’s equal, loading trucks and doing other “manly” jobs better than most men. He met his wife at an LGBTQIA+ event in Pennsylvania. Their relationship is 14 years strong, and Anderson makes a joke that it’s the time after which married couples divorce. But it’s clear that meeting his wife was extremely important to Anderson, who took his wife’s surname when they got married; he felt no connection to his own family name, he says. He calls his wife the better “three-fourths” of the couple. Many of Anderson’s interests align with those of an archetypal American man: cars, construction, sports. But he is also very keen on dancing. Anderson transitioned about six years ago. “It’s been better than I thought it’s going to be,” he says. Monterey County does not have a big trans community he says, but he feels safe here. That is not the case everywhere. He recently reconnected with his twin sister in Idaho. They went out to an Indian fusion restaurant where, despite knowing his story, she continued to publicly use “she” and “her” pronouns, and introduced Anderson as her sister; he said she doesn’t really “believe” in being trans. It made people look at them. “‘Listen,’ I told her, ‘I don’t care if you believe it or not. You put me in danger.’” Despite that visit, Anderson and his sister still talk on the phone every day. Fortunately, in English, the second-person singular (you) doesn’t require using pronouns. Angela Soto Cerros Gender: Nonbinary Pronouns: They/Them Age: 22 Residence: Salinas Angela Soto Cerros, 22, always forgets they weren’t born in Salinas. Rather, Soto Cerros was born in Nebraska, “which is weird,” they say. Their family moved to California when Soto Cerros was not even 3 years old because Nebraska weather was making the child sick. Their mom’s family is from El Salvador, dad’s from Mexico. Soto Cerros is nonbinary and employed by The Epicenter, a nonprofit in Salinas, as an LGBTQIA+ services student worker. They recently graduated from CSU Monterey Bay with a degree in psychology. Growing up, Soto Cerros noticed how gendered the Spanish language is, and that there are no ways of describing the LGBTQIA+ community without being derogatory. In Spanish, reality is divided by gender, which provides order—masculine nouns end in a “o” and feminine nouns end in an “a.” Adjectives follow. “When I got older I realized that homophobia and transphobia are ingrained in communities everywhere,” Soto Cerros says. “It goes way back to Spaniards coming to America and the conquest. Those kinds of hate messages are ingrained in the language, music and systemic cultural beliefs.” The gender assigned at birth to Soto Cerros was female. They were raised with the expectation to become a mom, a loyal wife, do all the traditional housework, wear dresses, act girlish. They were expected to start working after completing high school or already be married right out of high school. “I didn’t really care about gender as much as everybody did,” they say, turning the tables, pointing out that it’s Tee Anderson is a visual artist and a software engineer. He is into surfing and enjoys dancing.
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