Come out, come out, wherever you are! National Coming Out Day is Oct. 13 and, here in Philadelphia, we’re lucky to host the largest NCOD celebration in the world in our Gayborhood. Franny Price and the Philly Pride Presents crew are throwing their annual OutFest party with entertainment, music, dancing, vendors, community groups and much, much more. This week, PGN spoke to Stephanie Haynes who, with her family — wife Vicky Kresge, and sons Jove and Griffin — is being honored as the official OutProud family.
PGN: So are you originally from Philadelphia? SH: I’m not. I’m originally from Texas.
PGN: Deep in the heart of? SH: Well, Paris, Texas. It’s in the Northeast.
PGN: What did your parents do? SH: My mom worked for the state doing day-care licensing and eventually became the state director for day-care licensing, and my dad worked for the city government and before that for a printing company in human resources.
PGN: Siblings? SH: One younger brother — he’s an architect — and I have a stepsister.
PGN: How were you as a big sister? SH: We were only separated by two years so we were pretty close. We played together a lot.
PGN: You didn’t try to kill each other, like most siblings? SH: [Laughs.] That too! But in a fun way. I think our parents wisely let us sort things out on our own. We try to do the same thing with our boys. Our pediatrician tells her kids, “I don’t want to hear about it unless there’s blood.”
PGN: What was a favorite memory playing with your brother? SH: We played everything you can think of, but two things come to mind: We would always have contests with each other but at the same time play on the same team since there were only two of us. For example, we would play football and he would hike the ball to me, I would then throw it to him since he was the wide receiver on my team, but once he caught it, I would try to tackle him! I also recall having a lot of fun blowing up his “Star Wars” figures with firecrackers. [Laughs.] They would probably be worth a lot of money now!
PGN: What were you like as a kid? SH: Tomboy. I played softball and ended up being catcher of the team when the catcher broke her thumb. I really liked it because you were in on all the action. I even made it to the all-stars. I stopped when they went from fast pitch to slow pitch — no offense to all the lesbians out there playing slow-pitch softball, but it seemed kind of lame after being used to the speed. I was also in band from sixth grade through high school. I was the only girl trumpet player and I played in marching band and at football games. It was fun. I ended up majoring in music at college.
PGN: Where did you go to college? SH: University of Miami in Florida.
PG: Wow! That’s a bit of a change from Texas. SH: My goal was to move at least 1,000 miles away and they gave me a nice scholarship!
PGN: Softball scholarship? SH: No, I majored in music engineering, which is a combination of math and music together — studio recording, acoustic, it encompasses a lot of different things. [Laughs.] It seemed like a good idea until I got there and then decided, “Eh, I really don’t like playing with all these tiny knobs and staying up all night talking about bands.” And again I was the only girl and I was kind of over that. I switched majors around a few times but ended up with a bachelor of arts in music.
PGN: What part of Texas is still in your soul? SH: I guess Austin. It’s Texas through and through but it’s an oasis of liberalism with lots of lesbians. I guess there are gay men too, but I don’t really notice them. Sorry, guys. There’s also a big focus on outdoor activities.
PGN: Ha! I actually meant what is still Texonian about you? SH: Oh, well after a few beers my accent comes out. It’s funny because my kids were born and have grown up here in Philly but there are certain things that they say or the way they say them where I can hear the Texas in them. I do have a tendency to gravitate towards people here in Philadelphia who sound like the family I grew up with. Do you know Ed Hermance from Giovanni’s Room? Whenever I’m feeling nostalgic I talk to Ed and it’s like, “Ahhh, Texas.”
PGN: And how did you wind up in Philadelphia? SH: After graduation, I toyed with the idea of going to law school. I didn’t end up doing that but started doing fundraising for a nonprofit environmental group. I moved back to Texas, first to Paris where I did some theater work and bummed around for a while, and then to Austin where my mother had moved and my brother was going to college. I was doing door-to-door fundraising and got pretty good at it. I was promoted a few times and then a good friend of mine got cancer. She’s OK now but at the time I wanted to move closer to her and she was living in Rhode Island. I was director for a year in the Providence office when I had a pivotal moment. My boss came to me and said, ‘We want you to run a bigger office either in New York, D.C. or Philadelphia.’ New York was too expensive, I’d been to D.C. and didn’t really like it — too hard to get around and everyone wears a suit. So I decided to give Philadelphia a shot. I said it was a pivotal moment because I got off the train at 30th Street Station and within hours met the woman who is now my wife. That was August of 1994.
PGN: Cool! So when did you come out? SH: I came out in college. I’d always had feelings and a secret girlfriend when I was a kid, that sort of thing. Then I went to see Joan Jett and that was it!
PGN: And how long after meeting Vicky did you start dating? SH: Well, it’s a good story. When I first moved to Philly, I needed a place to live. I was sleeping on someone’s couch on Spruce Street. One day we were waiting for the rental car to pick us up to do some canvassing. I remember we were sitting on the steps by the Forrest Theatre and I said, “I need a place to live,” thinking that maybe she would know someone who had a place to rent. She responded, “I need a roommate” so I gave her a bunch of money and she went and rented a spot in South Philly. I never even saw it because I was busy working. We had a two-bedroom apartment next to Franco and Luigi’s pizzeria at 13th and Tasker. Two or three weeks into it we realized that we could’ve just gotten a one-bedroom.
PGN: And what does she do? SH: She’s a classroom-technology specialist at Wharton. Wharton prides itself on not only being one of the best business schools in the country but also having the best technology in classrooms around, videoconferencing, etc. She’s the person they call when the famous professor can’t get his or her PowerPoint presentation working.
PGN: Before we get into kids and family, any other hobbies? SH: You know I’m really getting into photography. It’s not like I have a nice camera, I just use my phone, but I’m really into Instagram and that sort of thing. I just found out before this interview that I won a “Visit Gay Philadelphia” photo contest!
PGN: Congratulations! SH: I’m also into politics, I’m on the board of Liberty City Democrats. I like beer as a hobby. I like to go to different tastings and finding new microbrews or locally brewed beers. My partner and I also bought a house in 2002 so my other hobby would be renovating. We did a lot of the work ourselves. Lesbian style with tool belts and the whole 9 yards.
PGN: What sparked your interest in politics? SH: Definitely my mother. When I was a kid, my mother ran against an incumbent who’d been on the local school board for years. She campaigned door to door and took out radio ads. My brother and I helped her and she managed to unseat him. In her role as a school-board member, she was actually the person who signed my diploma. Past that, in college I was interested in student government but I was never interested in being the politician, so I ran the campaigns. Plus just being out and gay in 1990 itself was politicizing. I went to the big gay-rights march in 1993 in D.C. and went to the Stonewall March in New York in 1994 as well. I just recently found my bracelet from the March in D.C., a numbered rainbow bracelet.
PGN: You’re the secretary for the Liberty City Democrats. What’s fun about that? SH: One of the things I love the most is that when I first started years ago, you would have maybe half of the people running for office or fewer come to seek our endorsement, but now it’s basically everyone. Everyone supports marriage equality and most other issues. Sometimes they need education on transgender issues but we’re happy to supply it. It’s awesome to see people running for office come to the meeting and try to out-“LGBT-friendly” each other.
PGN: And this year you worked on a political campaign? SH: Yes, my friend Inja Coates ran for Philadelphia Traffic Court judge. They’ve been entrenched with so many problems, she wanted to give people a choice to vote for someone who wasn’t in the system. I volunteered to be her treasurer/de-facto campaign manager. It was a lot of work, and my poor kids got roped in to helping me do fliers and all the kind of things I did with my mother.
PGN: Yeah, I put out an email during election time saying, “If you’ve ever been to Traffic Court or any court where you got some knucklehead judge and you cursed their stupidity under your breath and walked out kicking a trashcan, this is your time to make a difference.” SH: Yeah, wouldn’t it be great to instead get some cool member of our community who would be open-minded?
PGN: How did you get involved with Philly Family Pride? SH: When Vicky and I decided we wanted to have children, one of the people we spoke to said, “Be sure to talk to Philly Family Pride, they’re great and very helpful.” So I kind of filed that information in the back of my head. After the twins were born, it took us about a year to get settled in before we were able to start going to Philly Family Pride events. I had a very positive impression of the group and the way they ran things; it was very well-organized. When the community-coordinator position opened up I thought, You know I could use a part-time job. It would give my brain something to do and, of course, the money wouldn’t hurt either. So I applied and got the job five years ago.
PGN: Twins? SH: [Laughs.] Yes, we were planning on having two kids — Vicky would have the first one and then me, but we had twins. I’d been working part-time at the same company that I was when we met. It wasn’t that much money so it made sense for me to leave my job and become a stay-at-home mom. They were born Sept. 1, which is the exact same date that Vicky and I moved in together! They’re 7 now.
PGN: How long have you been together? SH: Sept. 14 was our first kiss so we use that for our anniversary; that was 19 years ago. Two years after that, we had a commitment ceremony, also on Sept. 14.
PGN: I noticed that Philly Family Pride, aside from being a great place to meet other parents, is also an organization that does a lot of activism. I read that you participated in the earned sick-day debate, among other things. SH: Sure, we are a 501(C)3, so our mission is mostly social and educational but we are able to do some advocacy. If your kids get sick and you have to take a day off without getting paid, that obviously has an impact on many families. So we joined the coalition for that and other issues that you might expect — anti-bullying, marriage equality, employment discrimination, etc.
PGN: That’s great! SH: We also hold a family conference each year. This year it’s going to be Oct. 19 at the William Way Center. It’s one of my favorite events with PFP because it’s a great chance for parents and prospective parents to go to workshops and hear the keynote speaker, who this year is children’s author Cory Silverberg. I love seeing the parents connect with each other and the kids hanging out together. People come back every year and it really helps them create relationships with each other. We have other events, camping trips, etc., where everyone gets together, but if you’re busy chasing around your kids and making sure that they’re having fun, it’s harder to connect. But if you’re in a workshop learning how to talk to kids about gender, you have more of a chance to bond. It’s also fun to meet people who are just thinking about starting a family and then seeing them come back year after year with their kids.
PGN: I heard you “called the balls” at Gay BINGO? SH: I did! That was so much fun. I’m a Leo so I don’t mind getting on stage in front of people. I already like Gay BINGO, but to sit up there next to Carlotta and call the balls was really fun.
PGN: Let me throw in two random questions. I’m so gay … SH: I fix my own appliances. I’m totally into the whole butch lesbian “I can fix that.” My neighbor’s dishwasher broke and I was like, “Don’t call someone! I’ll just order the parts and fix it for you.”
PGN: If you could choose a super power, what would it be? SH: You know, recently I was talking to one of the neighbor kids. He was really into superheroes but didn’t know of any female ones so I was explaining about Wonder Woman. I was talking about her awesome lasso, the Rope of Truth or whatever it was called. Linda Carter is awesome and if you watch the show on Netflix you’ll see it’s really still quite entertaining. I would love to have a Lasso of Truth. I definitely have a few politicians I would like to use it on and possibly the kids on occasion.
OutFest runs noon-6 p.m. Oct. 13 in the Gayborhood. Haynes and her family will be honored at the main stage at 13th and Locust streets around 2:30 p.m.
For more information on Liberty City Democratic Club, visit www.libertycity.org. For more information about Philadelphia Family Pride, visit www.phillyfamilypride.org.
To suggest a community member for Family Portrait, email [email protected].