Maybe Dicks and Moby Dicks

MISSION STATEMENT and BUDGET

(The Maybe Dicks at Moby Dick Project)

As an older trans woman poet, I see the fear and uncertainty facing my trans community in San Francisco, amid escalating anti‑trans laws and hostility. I seek a grant to support trans poets and myself through the Openhouse SF poetry class I teach, Moby Dick (a gay bar in the Castro), and other poetry series where I manage a series, by providing stipends and transportation and publishing a chapbook. My dream is to connect Moby Dick and Openhouse. I want to have my trans poets reading their poems at Moby Dick and other locations.

FOUNDER

I am 79 years old, a Vietnam Era Vet with a 100% Service-connected disability, and I am a trans woman and an artist. I am a mother-son incest survivor. I have known since I was four that I was transgender. After Catholic grammar and high school and a disastrous stint in a seminary to be a priest, I sought the US Army as refuge, where I was assigned to assist at autopsies without any training.

I have BA’s in Psychology and Theatre Arts and an MA in Creative Writing. I have worked in mental health and community theatre my whole life, and I have written poetry, plays, and fiction my whole life. My first published poem was at 17 and I have written through three marriages and three children. When my second wife gave me an ultimatum to not publish a trans poem––I divorced her.

For 7 years in the 90’s I was a volunteer Poet-In-the-Schools at my children’s elementary school, visiting every K-6 classroom once a month. I was kicked out of my bio-family in 1990 because I wrote a letter to my mother saying I wanted to finally talk about the incest. I worked 12 years in sewage treatment as a Chemist in the lab (I am a self-taught chemist), during which I led a five-week strike in 1992, which we won.

The last 10 years of my work life, I was a Director of Community Employment at Dreamcatchers Empowerment Network, helping people with disabilities find and keep a job, accredited through the State Department of Rehabilitation.

I have acted in community theatre all my life. It’s where I learned how to voice a poem as a trained actor, and how to write a play.

I was serving on the San Francisco Behavioral Health Commission when I first dressed female in public in the fall of 2018. I haven’t looked back. The VA had a wonderful transgender program back then, before the VA was wrecked. In those early days, I was photographed for the VA’s I AM NOT INVISIBLE project that celebrated the contributions of women vets. That picture was on a billboard at SFO for 2 years.

I have deep connections to Ghana. My daughter is married to a Ghanaian man, and I have two Ghanaian granddaughters. In Ghana, it’s a three-year jail sentence just to be trans, but I still make trips to visit my extended African family. I wrote a non-fiction book about the Nigerian commercial kidnapping phenomenon with my son-in-law.

I interact with my trans community most often at Openhouse SF, where I have also taught poetry writing for 2 years. In addition, I have managed a poetry reading series at Moby Dick, a bar in the Castro, the only poetry series in a gay bar in San Francisco. After 4 poetry shows, we paused until we resume in the fall. My dream is to connect Moby Dick and Openhouse. I want to have my trans poets reading their poems at Moby Dick.

PROJECT BUDGET

$2000  Poet stipends: (Poetry nights at Moby Dick are held the third Tuesday of the month, resuming in October 2026)

 $2000  Compiling, editing, printing chapbook of trans poets’ work.

 $2000   an assistant to run lights and sound while I MC

 $2000   portable sound equipment (mic, mic stand, speakers)

 $2000 Director's stipend

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$10,000