PORT ANGELES — How does it feel when you’re a big, tall man dressed as a woman — high heels, miniskirt and enhanced bosom — and people stop to gawk at you?
Suzanne Adams, a retired police chief from Colorado, has a hard time answering the question.
“I have to think about that,” Adams said. “I’ve gotten so used to it.”
She’s a “trans,” a transgendered male-to-female, and for 17 years has been organizing the Esprit Gala, the Pacific Northwest’s transgender convention held every spring at the Red Lion Hotel in Port Angeles.
“It’s a bit like being in a fishbowl. But we learn to smile back,” Adams said, tilting her perfectly coiffed head.
“They’re curious. We know they have to look.”
A week of activities
Adams and fellow conventioneers — 160 this year — began arriving in Port Angeles on Sunday for a week of activities.
Esprit week has grown to be one of the largest conventions to take place at the 186-room Red Lion, and “there is never a dull moment . . . it’s great to have them,” said Donya Alward, the hotel’s sales and marketing director.
The week is drenched in parties, with a “first-timer wine and cheese” reception Wednesday and Victorian afternoon tea today, plus shopping trips to Victoria and Port Townsend.
Then come events that bring the Esprit crowd and the public together: Girls’ Night Out tonight, when many downtown Port Angeles shops will stay open late; the Esprit Talent Show and dance at 8 p.m. Friday at the Elks Naval Lodge, 131 E. First St.; and the Celestial Ball with the Fabulous Boomers band at 9 p.m. Saturday at the Red Lion, 221 N. Lincoln St.
Also tonight, Friday and Saturday night, the Seattle band Nasty Habits — an Esprit favorite — will play at Bar N9ne, 229 W. First St.
“We’ve looked around,” at other cities, Adams said, since Esprit can’t expand at the Red Lion. But she and her compatriots are not leaving.
“We love Port Angeles. We’ve built ties here,” Adams said, adding that the planning committee sought local teachers for many of Esprit’s classes: actor and designer Richard Stephens taught “Sewing for Beginners,” and Steppin’ Out Salon owner Kylie Ellis conducted “Makeup Basics.”
Keeping the Esprit conference small allows visitors and residents to get to know one another, Adams said.
And so Port Angeles “found out we’re not perverts. We’re people.”
‘Welcome Esprit’
A mutual admiration society has developed: “Welcome, Esprit” signs are all over downtown, and www.Espritconf.com proclaims that shopkeepers and restaurateurs dote on conference-goers.
“We’ve had a few ladies in, and we always have a lot of fun with them,” Edna Petersen, owner of Necessities & Temptations, a gift shop at 217 N. Laurel St., said Wednesday.
“I’m proud of this community for welcoming differences,” Petersen added.
This year turned out to be an especially auspicious one, Adams said.
She received a call from Port Angeles City Manager Kent Myers letting her know that a City Council member would be coming over — and over came Councilman Max Mania on Sunday, with greetings on behalf of the council.
“The city is grateful for all [Esprit] has brought to us, economically and culturally,” Mania said. “I really want them to know they’re noticed and appreciated.”
“This is the first time,” Adams said, “that we have been officially welcomed by the city government.”
For some, Esprit an edu-vacation with their spouses. Several classes and get-togethers for wives and partners are on the Esprit schedule since, Adams said, most of the participants are married.
She’s been married to a woman for 17 years, for example.
On Monday and Wednesday, Adams taught cross-dressing 101, a class that isn’t just about skirts and shoes; it’s about how to walk down a hall like a woman, how to sit and talk like a lady and, Adams said, how to drive like one. As in not aggressively.
Cross-dressers are in many cases heterosexual men who feel best when they present themselves as women; they are not, she added, drag queens nor gay men who don campy costumes that poke fun at women.
“It’s about gender, not about sex,” Adams said.
________
Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
