Archive
Oral Histories
Voices from the Coastal Bend's LGBTQ+ past.
About these stories
Every interview on this site is presented uncut and unedited. Memories, pacing, pauses, and viewpoints are preserved exactly as the storyteller shared them — no polish, no reshaping. What you hear is their history in their own words.
Vanessa Edwards Foster
Vanessa Edwards Foster traces her journey from discovering the word 'transsexual' through Renee Richards in 1976 to becoming a pioneering transgender activist. Growing up in the 1960s and navigating isolation through the seventies and eighties, she attended Fantasia Fair in Provincetown and explored Houston's drag scene at The Exile in the late 1980s. After accessing hormones from Dr. Anthony without gatekeeping requirements, rapid feminization led to job loss in 1996, inadvertently launching her into activism. She founded the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition in 1999, lobbying Congress for ENDA inclusion and hate crimes protections, working with families like Gwen Araujo's and collaborating with Sylvia Rivera. Through two decades of advocacy work in Washington and Austin, she learned the art of finding common ground even with opponents like Republican Warren Chisum. After returning to Corpus Christi in 2018, escalating anti-trans legislation drove her decision to emigrate to Costa Rica by 2024. Her reflections reveal both pride in unexpected accomplishments and deep concern about historical patterns repeating, as dehumanization intensifies and violence against transgender people continues.
Donna Blaze Johnson
Donna Blaze Johnson traces her journey from coming out in 1977 through decades of LGBTQ community building in Corpus Christi and beyond. She discovered the gay bar scene through a newspaper series, became the first woman bartender at venues like the Zodiac and Jolly Jack, and performed with her band Donna and the Daves while struggling with addiction. The vibrant pre-AIDS era she describes, filled with drag shows, Splash Day beach parties, and seawall cruising, was devastated by the epidemic that claimed an entire generation of friends. After getting sober in 1985 through treatment in Port Arthur, Donna found new community in AA's sober biker culture, eventually leading Corpus Christi's Pride Parade with Dykes and Friends on Bikes and riding with the Chrome Divas. Moving to New York in the late eighties opened her eyes to how oppressed she'd been in Texas. Now she mentors LGBTQ youth, promising them chosen family and assuring them it gets better, while reflecting on her butch identity and the reclaimed language of resilience.
Brittany Ramirez
Brittany Ramirez was born an entertainer, entering the LGBT scene at fifteen in the vibrant late-1980s South Texas community. Dancing backup for local queens during the aftermath of the AIDS crisis, she won South Texas Newcomer in 1991, transitioned in 1993, and legally changed her name in 1994 under Ann Richards' administration—one of the first trans women in the Coastal Bend to do so. After years living stealth, she returned to performing in 1999, missing her community. Her biggest regrets center on the dangerous underground body modifications and survival work that characterized her rushed transition in an era of employment discrimination and isolation. Inspired by advocate Kitana Sanchez, Brittany transformed her voice into activism, co-founding Coastal Bend Trans Alliance in 2016 and organizing the pivotal Pulse vigil that brought over five hundred people together. Now fifty-three and still performing, she creates pageants for newcomers, supports trans youth and their families, and works across disadvantaged communities. Her legacy, built over thirteen years of advocacy, focuses on helping others avoid her mistakes while inspiring hope through perseverance.