'This Is Where My People Are': A Queer Person's Journey to the Bay

Episode Transcript

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Ericka Cruz Guevarra:  I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, and welcome to the Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. For a long time, Quin Petty thought of the Bay area as this mythical place. The only real representation they’d actually seen of San Francisco specifically was in the TV show Charmed.

Quin Petty: And I was obsessed with Charmed.

Quin Petty: It was so unattainable. Almost. It just felt like, I don’t know, like. Like I said, like a fairyland where I wasn’t allowed to be. And if I could only make it there that, like, I don’t know, everything would be perfect, I guess.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Beyond Charmed, there was just one thing they knew about the Bay. It was where they could find other queer people.

Quin Petty: And that I was someone who identified that way. And I didn’t know much about community before that. So, like, the concept of community was so foreign to me that I was like, I just know that this is where my people are, and I need to be there as much as possible.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: This month, San Francisco joined Sacramento and West Hollywood in becoming a sanctuary city for transgender people. But even before San Francisco was officially a sanctuary city, it has always been a beacon for queer folks like Quin.

Quin Petty: My connection to the Bay area is very much a part of my connection with like myself and like my body.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: This Pride Month, we’re sharing this story of one trans person’s journey to the bay in their own words. Stay with us.

Quin Petty: My name is Quin Petty. I was raised in what is sometimes colloquially known as the Bible Belt of Southern California. Very Mormon forward town, in a place called Marietta, California. My mom is Mexican and my dad is half Japanese and half white. Growing up, I always knew that I was different and I always kind of felt. Closer to femininity than I did to boy things, I guess.

Quin Petty: I feel like it’s a very typical queer experience to like, know yourself, telling yourself without actually telling on yourself for a while until you reach pre-K kindergarten. But I think more than anything, my attraction to boys was definitely more so. The thing that led me to realizing I was different, especially because I knew that boys liked girls and like I wanted boys to like me. I do very specifically remember when I was younger constantly asking like, why was I born a boy? Like, why can’t I be a girl? It just wasn’t clicking.

Quin Petty: I didn’t understand why that option wasn’t available to me. So yeah, I came out around sophomore year of high school. It was the first day of P.E., and I had it with one of my best friends, and there was like some new girl was like, approaching me and like, we were talking and blah, blah, blah. I specifically remember her, like asking. She was like, are you okay? I just remember my best friend fully ready to defend me. She took in the breath to say no. And I was like, yeah. I just remember the look of shock on her face like, bitch, I’ve been lying for you this whole time.

Quin Petty: Everyone was already blaming me for thinking that I was gay and I was like, well, if I am gay, then they have to find something else to bully me for. Like, they can’t just keep going with us forever. If there ever was a perfect time to come out, I think I got a good time. I got a good time slot. 2008 was around the time, like Lady Gaga was coming out. Katy Perry was out here kissing girls. There was just so much culturally going on. Prop A was a big issue. Don’t ask, Don’t Tell was still being talked about.

Quin Petty: There were things happening not only within culture, but within government and within everybody’s TVs at home. It wasn’t necessarily this bad thing anymore. And if anything, I think I saw that and I realized that like, hey, here’s this thing that I’ve had in me for forever, and people are finally starting to appreciate it, kind of see it as this thing that makes you special and makes you different. And it’s crazy too, because throughout high school, I was still kind of getting bullied.

Quin Petty: Like people are still talking behind my back, but I didn’t care. Another big thing that was happening around this time was like social media. I mean, yeah, I’d had a Myspace for a minute. I think I just made my Facebook. I actually happened to stumble upon this boy’s profile who, like, looked really cool. His all his photos were amazing and like, I believe he had a Lady Gaga song on his profile. And we just started talking like every single day. And they were working towards going to the Academy of Art in San Francisco.

Quin Petty: So yeah, that’s how I met my best friend Alejo. There was an opportunity that came up where I was able to, like, go visit Alejo, and I think my parents were down for it. But something happened and I ended up getting grounded. And they’re like, you’re not going to San Francisco anymore.

Quin Petty: And I was like, I know you guys didn’t cancel the stick. I had access to their email. And so I went through their email and I found the ticket, printed it out. And like I specifically remember in the dead of night, slowly opening the front door, and my mom comes out and like her little nightgown and basically catches me running away.

Quin Petty: And I just remember her repeating in her little sleepy haze, she was like, you’re going to come back for me? And I was like, yeah, there’s a return flight. Like, I’m not going to just stay there. I spent a good like my first two weeks in San Francisco. Alejo was this, like, broke art school student living in what used to be a utility closet in this, like, poorly kept apartment complex right off of Octavian. They had one single loft bed, but I was having the time of my life. I didn’t care. We had a hot plate, we had ramen, we had hot dogs and a dream.

Quin Petty: I stole a couple meals from that Safeway right there off of Market Street. Went to Dolores for the first time. It felt like one of those things where it’s like, I shouldn’t be here. This isn’t a place I was meant to be, but here I am. Me as a gay person from this horrible little town. Like, I wasn’t meant to make it out, but I did. I ended up moving up to the Bay about two years, 2 or 3 years after I first visited the morning of like, I think it was like four in the morning. I decided to start this voyage, with my parents permission.

Quin Petty: This time I ended up moving in with Alejo again for about like four months or so. We were living in Concord. And I was working at Club Monaco at the Westfield in San Francisco. And, yeah. After like 4 or 6 months, maybe I was able to save up enough money to get an apartment. Well, a room in San Francisco for $400. And that was it. That’s all I needed. I lived in what I like to refer to as the outer, outer, outer mission. It’s past Excelsior, but like literally one block away from Daily City. I guess you could call it a duplex.

Quin Petty: You could also call it a Chinese family living in their basement and letting four crust punks and me live above them. When I moved up here for the first time, and especially when I moved to San Francisco, it felt like everything about my like, being just felt like it was at a time when I made it, you know, I was just like, yes, I was just a sales associate, but I don’t know, I felt like I was on Gossip Girl. So when I first came out, I was very much a gay boy. I mean, I looked the part. I was very Twinkie.

Quin Petty: In those days, I would say that I was I was happy enough at the time. I started to have more of a concrete idea of like. Where I was headed gender wise. If you ask any trans person who has taken time to transition and has like had multiple coming out, I think we all have this little conversation with ourself, this little mini check in where we’re like, girl, are you are you trans lady? Like, are you sure? And then there’s always that talk back where you’re like, no, there’s no way. Why would you want to make your life harder?

Quin Petty: I ended up moving back home for about a year, actually. So like living back home, especially living in a place where you sort of have to rehash a lot of your trauma, a lot of it gets brought back up again. And I think in having that stuff being brought back up, I realized that I couldn’t necessarily have these important conversations with myself and go through these healing processes in the same place that I had endured so much trauma as well. So when I finally ended up moving back to the Bay area, I decided to go into food service.

Quin Petty: There was a coworker there. Shout out to Justine! We love Justine. She asked the most simple question. This was the first time we were meeting and she was like, oh, what are your pronouns, by the way, that it was the first time anyone had ever asked me that question. And I paused for like a good 15 seconds.

Quin Petty: And I literally remember responding with like, I’ll get back to you. Months after that, like whole situation where Justine had asked me that question. I don’t know if I ever gave them an answer, but I was still very much in flux with that question when the pandemic started.

Quin Petty: Because my job was affected by the pandemic. I was getting checks at that time. So I literally it was just like, it’s one of those things where you’re like, well, if all of your things are taken care of, like what? What are you what do you what do you have to to to give to society? I was able to, like, really get into makeup during the pandemic. My friends definitely were the most affirming. I found a really good base up here, obviously, and I had a very good community of online friends also that were super supportive.

Quin Petty: I debuted my new name on Facebook for like All To See, which I don’t know, I sort of assumed was a very like definitive way to do that. I’ve had the conversation with like a couple family members, a few like really accepting and open aunts. I haven’t really yeah, I haven’t really had that conversation with my family, if I’m being honest. They still either just refer to me as Mehul or by my dad name, which we’re working on it. Me and my parents sort of had this like this break.

Quin Petty: We didn’t talk for like a good, I want to say to 2 or 3 years. Basically around the time of the George Floyd protests. I was talking on the phone with my mom. We were sort of talking about it, and she sort of said something along the lines of like, well, you know, if like, those people just followed the way of Jehovah. And I was like, mom, it led me to this question that I asked her where I was, like, as it stands, like I’m the way that I am when you die and when I die and like, you’re in Paradise, like, and I’m not there, like, are you going to be okay with that?

Quin Petty: She paused a little, but she was also like, well, I mean, yeah, I’m going to miss you. But. And like, that was kind of all it took. I just remember clicking the phone off. I didn’t talk to her for like 2 or 3 years after that. Currently I identify as. Ultimately non-binary, ultimately, ultimately trans like. I really prefer using that umbrella. Mostly to give myself room to grow. I suppose I do often think that like.

Quin Petty: And I know this is there’s a lot of discourse about this, within the community of like the validity of taking on certain monikers and like. Like it’s okay, but like, I don’t, I don’t know, I just I still think that there are. Other trans women who have gone through so much more than I have to be able, would like to be able to to take on that title. Feels like I am. I’m taking on so much more than just that. I’ve pretty much fully socially transitioned like my parents.

Quin Petty: No, they don’t necessarily talk about it, but they know. I’ve also sort of been a part of this school of thought that’s like your transness is also not invalid. If you don’t decide to medically transition like, I’m I’m of two minds of it because like, I would love to have facial feminization surgery, but like it also doesn’t define my transness. Am I interested in medical transition? The short answer is yes.

Quin Petty: It’s just one of those things that like, I guess, much like San Francisco was when I first moved here. And when I first thought about coming up here, it was it’s like that exists in such an abstract, like ideal version of what I want that like, it feels so unattainable, but who knows? I think a lot of me being up here, especially during the pandemic.

Quin Petty: Especially during a time where we as a community really had to band together, not just as queer people, but as like people that are for the rights of all individuals and like being up here for like the George Floyd protests and like the Black Lives Matter movement, like, I don’t think I could have been anywhere else and felt more affirmed in my humanity in general, not just my transness. It’s really hard to imagine living anywhere else.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: That was Quin Petty in conversation with our intern, Ellie Prickett-Morgan. This episode was pitched and cut by Ellie Prickett-Morgan. It was also produced by Adhiti Bandlamudi, who scored this episode.

Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Our senior editor is Alan Montecillo. Additional production support from Me. The Bay is a production of listener supported KQED in San Francisco. I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra, thanks so much for listening. Talk to you next time.