For his 18th birthday, some older friends took Taylor Powell to a nightclub in Nashville, as he was living in Shelbyville, about an hour away. Sara Andrews was working at the club that night, as she had for quite some time, and when she came out on stage to perform, Powell was instantly smitten.
Powell immediately told his friends that Andrews was going to be his—even though Powell didn't even know her name.
They laughed at Powell and said that Andrews was too pretty, too old and way out of Powell's league.
"I had never seen a trans person, so I was very confused by the fact that this drag queen had breasts. Anyway, I didn't care. I knew that there was a beautiful person standing on that stage that I wanted to know more about," Powell said. "I was trying to think of ways to talk to her, or have her notice me. I heard over the microphone that they were holding auditions for drag kings and decided, 'What better way to talk to a drag queen than to be a drag king?'"
A week later, Powell threw on a button-down shirt, glued some hair to his face and headed back to Nashville to make his debut as "Nathan Blaze."
"I made the cast and had my first show the very next week," Powell said. "I went backstage and we just started talking about nonsense and instantly connected in my opinion. She claims she thought nothing of it. Either way, the next week I showed up with flowers. The week after that I brought my guitar and sang her a song that I'd written for her."
Three years later—and now living and working in Chicago—they are engaged to be married, though Powell still likes, and actually prefers, to simply be labeled as, boyfriend and girlfriend, which "sounds way cuter," he said.
Powell, now 21, is a trans man who is a manager at Dive Bar in Lake View, and he still enjoys dabbling in music, playing his guitar and singing the first things that come to his mind. Andrews, 34, is a trans woman and works as a national drag artist and entertainer, and a diva at The Kit Kat Lounge and Supper Club. Andrews also admittedly is a big video gamer who has received international mainstream media exposure a few years ago for supposedly "championing gay rights for gaymers," she said. In fact, if you look at Wikipedia for the definition of the word 'gaymer,' you'll find her name.
Andrews transitioned at about 21, while Powell just recently started hormone replacement therapy, though he has lived as a boy for the past three years.
Their first date was three years ago—while Powell was still in high school, which Andrews didn't know at the time. Powell was working the night shift at Burger King, so, needless to say, money was scarce. He borrowed $50 from his mom and picked up Andrews as they were going to a movie.
"I tried to take her to dinner beforehand, but she wouldn't let me," Powell said. "We went to see 'The Woman in Black.' I still don't know what happened in that movie because she was much more interesting.
"I'm a firm believer in the saying, 'Happy wife, happy life.' [So,] whatever she wants, she gets. It's been that way from the beginning. Now, she's a spoiled brat, but I guess I've got no one to blame but myself. I can be bull headed and have a tendency to argue sometimes, but at the end of the day she ultimately wins out. I'm cool with that."
Powell said their 13-year age-difference has not been a major obstacle. In fact, "I love the age-difference," he said. "I've always been quite the little cougar-chaser anyway. I always had crushes on my English teachers in high school. Sara is older and she's well spoken with a big vocabulary. Just my type."
Andrews laughed. "What can I say? I'm a cougar," she said. "I think the age-difference works because I'm basically a big kid with Peter Pan syndrome; I refuse to grow up. And it doesn't hurt that Taylor is way more mature than I ever was at 21 … or am now, to be honest. He keeps me from getting too crazy, and I make sure he acts a little crazy sometimes. It works."
Powell said his family has been very supportive of his transition. Some of his longtime friends, though, are a bit small town-small minded, he said. They say to Powell, "I love you, but you will always be a girl to me."
"But they love me regardless, so I guess that's the silver lining," he said.
Andrews admitted that a lot of her friends were at first "very freaked out" by her relationship with Taylor. "They didn't understand it," she said. "It's funny how, even in the gay community, people can be less open-minded than you would think they would be."
The loving trans duo truly are role-models for a younger generation of trans, trans-curious and trans-questioning. But each is modest in that spot.
"I don't think I'm anyone's idol," he said. "I'm just a lucky guy [who] had a little hurdle to jump over in the beginning. I just feel lucky to have a great job, a loving family, and a person who loves me to share my life with. I don't think I should be idolized for that. I just want the younger trans people who are scared to transition to know that they can make it through whatever life throws at them. Work hard, think hard, try hard, and love hard. That's what we all have to do, trans or not."
Andrews added, with a smile, "Oh gosh, I pity the poor soul [who] would look up to me as a role model." But still, Andrews has had quite a few girls over the years tell her that it was seeing her onstage that inspired them to start their transition. "That's pretty awesome to think that I had something to do with inspiring others to live their lives the way that they want," she said.
"I've always believed that drag queens are sort of like muses. We inspire people. And that's why I think it's important to have transgender drag queens in the mix. Chances are, there are going to be some young trans individuals in that audience that just happened to discover their sexuality before discovering what it means to be transgender and that need a little inspiration and courage."
Andrews definitely has helped Powell with his transition, without question.
"She was a tremendous help to me," he said. "When we first got together I was still in the in-between phase. I was a lesbian in my home town, but too afraid to be a boy in Nashville. When we got together, she called me [male pronouns]. But, when she realized that I still lived as a girl she told me, 'I don't care if you want to be a girl or a boy; I just need to know whether to call you my boyfriend or my girlfriend.'
"As simple a statement [as] it was, I took it to heart and realized that I could find someone who cared about me regardless of my gender conformity. She was the relief to the last fear I had about transitioning. The fear being, 'Who will love someone like me?'"
Powell didn't start his transition until he lived in Chicago. Doing it in Tennessee just wasn't the right time, the right place for him.
"I was too shy and uneducated about the subject to deal with," it in Tennessee, he said. "I felt like I was supposed to be a boy and that is all I knew. Then, when I moved here, I discovered the Howard Brown Health Center. They made starting my transition so easy. They treated me like a person and just had me read and sign a written consent form. I did blood work the same day and started hormones the following week. It was amazing. I wish all trans people in the nation were so fortunate to have a place like that."
When asked about Caitlyn Jenner, arguably the world's most high-profile transgender, Andrews said, "I think, despite some of the flaws I see in the situation and in her political views, her presence in the media is going to do far more good than bad for the trans community. And that's awesome. Overall, I'd say that her media attention has helped move the trans-equality movement forward quite a bit. Because of her, I might actually witness a time when transgender people aren't so taboo. Imagine how much sooner I might have transitioned if I wasn't so worried about being considered a 'freak.' Hopefully future generations won't have that to worry about that.
Powell said trans man Skyler Kergil was "inspiring" and helped him feel more comfortable with the idea of being trans.
"My biggest trans role model is Calpernia Sarah Addams," Andrews said. "She was actually the first trans person I ever met. She was also a drag queen at the big gay club in Nashville when I first started sneaking in to perform at age 17. She hosted the amateur night, so she became one of my first mentors. But, more importantly, she became a huge trans activist some years later. And, when I decided to transition, she helped me find resources both locally and online to get me started. Because of that, I took her middle name as my first and dropped the 'H.' She's one of the funniest and most intelligent trans women I know."
