Victoria Miller: From the musical to the nautical

Victoria Miller is Turnersville native who has many skills. The owner of a New Jersey print shop, she is also an avid musician and antique boat and car enthusiast. We met on her boat moored on the Delaware River to talk about life, changes and her upcoming TV show “Vicky,” aimed at the trans community.

PGN: So your boat is called “Four Julias in Paradise.” Explain.

VM: My mother’s middle name is Julia, my two daughters’ middle names are Julia and, when I transitioned, I picked Julia as my middle name. To me, paradise is on the water. My mother is in heaven, so she’s in paradise, and my two kids are paradise to me; I love them all, so that’s how I got the name. 

PGN: Tell me about Bertha.

VM: That’s my mother’s name, she was the backbone of the family. She was strong. I was lucky enough to have two of the best parents a kid could have. Though I do remember coming home at age 6 and telling my mother I wanted to wear dresses and play with dolls, which didn’t go over too well. She was never mean or nasty about it, but I quickly decided not to bring it up again. It just wasn’t something addressed in those days. Inside, my desire for girly things never changed; it just got stronger. I remember sneaking into my mom’s room the first time I was home alone at 12 years old and dressing in her dresses and heels; it was amazing. When I went through puberty, I was devastated when my voice changed and I grew body hair. My first time dressing completely as a woman was at 16 when I dressed as a girl for Halloween. My friend BettyAnn gave me a dress and all the accessories and a wig and I was in total heaven! 

PGN: And the other Bertha in your life?

VM: Ah yes, my trumpet. I’ve been playing flugelhorn and trumpet since the fourth grade. My father started a marching band to help keep kids out of trouble. I played with them for years but as I got older, I stopped playing. When my father was on his deathbed — my mother and father both died in 2000 — his dying wish was for me to play “Taps” at his funeral. It was the hardest thing I ever did. 

PGN: Was your father a musician?

VM: No, my father couldn’t carry a beat in a bucket, but both he and my mother were always engaged parents. They were involved in Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts; it was all about kids. My dad would buy instruments at yard sales so we always had something to play. At one point, he just decided to start a community band to help kids stay out of trouble. At my parents’ funeral I can’t tell you how many people came up to me and said, “If it wasn’t for your mom and dad, I’d be dead or in jail.” Which is funny, because it was the Freedom Band that saved me.

PGN: How did you get involved with them?

VM: I was at a trans event at Tavern on Camac and read an article about the Freedom Band. It sounded like fun so I sent them an email. A few weeks later, I got an email back and it literally saved my life. I was/am in the print and signage business and I’d decided to take my life. I had my 50-foot sign crane in the air with a cable attached and a rope around my neck when my phone dinged with incoming mail. I don’t know what possessed me to stop and read my email in the middle of it, but I did and it was an email from the band saying simply, “We would love to have you.” The thought that someone wanted me was enough to make me decide to stay around a little longer.

PGN: What was going on that you were at that point?

VM: I had just transitioned, and that part went well, but I’d just been through an ugly divorce and my wife wouldn’t let me see my kids and it was just a hard time all around. I’d had to file for bankruptcy, after years of making money. But suicide is not uncommon for trans people; there’s close to a 35-percent suicide rate amongst trans people. It’s a tough thing. Something I want to say about the Freedom Band, it’s not just a band, it’s a family. We help each other. Last year, I was hospitalized and it was band members who drove to my house in Jersey to help me. 

PGN: What kind of things were you into when you were young?

VM: I was a technical-gadget kind of a guy; as you can see I’m still a gizmo fanatic. [Points to her amateur radio and panel of things that blink and beep on the boat.] I’ve owned boats since I was 14. My father started it and I grew up on them. I’m into building and restoring. When I was in high school, I built my own dune buggy, which was my everyday car. I got this boat and restored it myself. It was a real rat but I love it. The water is such a calming, tranquil place to be — even though it can become violent at times. There’s just something that draws me to it.

PGN: Cool. Other hobbies?

VM: I’ve been into scuba diving for years. My craziest dive was on a shipwreck called “The Emanuella.” It was a deep, deep compression dive, 210 feet down. It took me two hours and 37 minutes to come back up. I surfaced in the middle of a school of barracudas. I got stuck inside of a wreck once. I got caught on a fishing line and had to take my tanks off and cut myself free. I also did some volunteer work as an underwater crime-scene investigator and rescue diver. 

PGN: How does that work?

VM: If a body is found in the water, we go in and, if it’s not clear enough to take pictures, we actually feel around the area. We run our hands over the body and surrounding area and create a mental picture of what happened —  “There’s a body and a piece of pipe and the body is stuck under it,” etc. — and then we draw it for the coroner to help them determine how the person died. 

PGN: Wow. What’s the most disgusting thing you’ve come across?

VM: I was on a party dive off of LBI and when we got up and took a head count, one was missing. Me and another guy went back down and by the time we found him, the crabs were already making food out of him. It took a while to get him up.

PGN: Jeez, you’re a mild-mannered graphic designer by day and a crime-scene investigator by another day!

VM: Yeah! I’m one of the few certified dive masters around and used to teach at local colleges. I stopped for a while, but just recently did my first dive in four years, helping someone here in the marina. 

PGN: Explain why you think it’s good to have a transgender woman as a friend.

VM: Ha! That was actually a joke I was having with some friends here at the marina. We were on the boat talking and the girls were on one side and the guys on the other and I was sitting in the middle. My friend Phil joked, “Hey, you need to pick a side, you’re looking to the left talking about high heels and makeup and to the right talking about diesel boat engines!” I said, ‘Yeah, that’s the wonderfulness of me! I can have a conversation in any crowd.” A few days later, a friend of ours was having trouble with his boat and I jumped in and opened up the engine compartment and started tinkering. I fixed the problem with a little key ring and pair of pliers I keep in my purse and turned to Phil and said, “See, it’s a good thing I didn’t pick sides!” He just laughed.

PGN: So how is our Jersey girl liking Philadelphia?

VM: It’s interesting. I grew up in a predominantly white area. I never was exposed to other cultures. When I came here, I’d been here about a month and was walking off the boat wearing a cami and some Daisy Duke shorts. An African-American woman walked towards me, looked at me, put her hand on her hip and said, “Honey, you rocked that shit!” I didn’t know how to take it; was she being sarcastic or did she really think I looked good? Shortly after, I was at a Freedom Band event and Councilman Squilla and Mayor Nutter were standing across from me and they were looking at me and giggling. I assumed they were laughing at “the ugly transwoman” until a few weeks later, when I ran into them again at a black-tie event. They came up to me and Councilman Squilla said, “You’re the girl with the shirt! The one that says, ‘Made You Look.’ My daughter has the same shirt. It’s so cool that you both have it. You make people look and you own it and I think it’s the coolest thing in the world.” It’s been great getting to know people I never would have encountered before. I’ve made a lot of new friends. 

PGN: How did transitioning go for you?

VM: The night I transitioned, I edited my Facebook page and put my girl picture and girl name up with an explanation of what was happening. I sent out 1,000 e-mails to my customers and friends and wrote, “If you don’t want to hear from me after this, just reply with ‘remove’ in the subject line.” I shut my phone off right after I hit send. The next day, out of 1,000 emails I had one person ask to be removed and within a week I went from 92 Facebook friends to 172. My Facebook message box was full with messages of support and, when I turned my phone on, there were 262 voicemails, all supportive. When I got to my local diner where they all knew me as Bob, I walked in and they said, “Hello Vicky,” as if nothing had happened. It was incredible. The only negative reaction was from my ex-wife, but she was mad for other reasons.

PGN: Three things on your bucket list?

VM: Final surgery, of course. I’d like to fly in a fighter jet and I want to do something significant in the community to help other girls. I’ve lost two friends to suicide. When my friend Lisa killed herself, I realized how much it devastated her family and friends. My kids are 12 and 16 and I’ve always had a good relationship with them. So I want to help other girls who are having a hard time.

PGN: Best birthday?

VM: It was this year. I’ve had great ones with my kids, but in the last three years I hadn’t had any birthday or Christmas gifts. But one of my biggest supporters when I transitioned was Mitzi McEwan, I’m probably going to cry now … She took me out to dinner and she was wonderful.

PGN: That’s great.

VM: Yes, I’ve had so many supportive women around me. My friend Lisa was an Eagles cheerleader, every high-school guy’s wet dream, and she was the very first person I came to. She was 100-percent accepting and forced me to go to our 35th high-school reunion with her. All the girls brought me into their circle as one of the gals. A couple of them said, “You know, if we gave out an award for most changed, you’d definitely win!” There was also a straight couple from the diner, Jack and Bonnie, who helped me when I was sick. That year when I came home by myself on Christmas Eve, at the top of my staircase there was a little tin of pizzelles. It had flurried that night and there was a little bit of snow on top of the can, it was so beautiful. Sometimes it’s just the little things.

PGN: Tell me a little about the TV show you’re working on.

VM: I met Trudy Haynes here at the marina on the boat of Dr. Larry Robinson. He’d invited me to a party and introduced me to her. She was the country’s first African-American TV weathercaster and the first African-American reporter on Channel 3 back in 1965. We started talking and she asked if she could interview me for her TV show. She shortly decided that the subject matter was too big for just a segment on the show and asked if I was interested in doing my own show. Things fell through, but she planted the idea and now I’m working with Philly Cam to produce the show. But I think it’s so awesome that Trudy wants to help other communities. She didn’t know much about the trans community at first, but wanted to learn and was very accepting from the start.

PGN: I understand you do a lot of teaching, including talking to the parents of a young transwoman.

VM: Oh yeah, this young woman was transitioning, taking hormones, and her mother was fairly accepting but the father was completely opposed. I volunteered to speak to him. That was a difficult conversation, he was really pushing my buttons. He was a staunch Baptist and believed I needed to find God so he could cure me. He’s not an evil man, he just believes what he believes and I didn’t agree. I hope the conversation helped a little. It’s funny, once you do this, people come out of the woodwork to talk to you.

PGN: This?

VM: Transition. Everyone’s like, “I have a cousin who wants to be a woman” or “I have a friend who wants to do what you did.” Even the manager at the CVS asked if she could ask me questions because they had a person who was transitioning apply for a job and she didn’t know what to do. She hired him and I’d like to think it was because I answered her questions and she knew what to expect. It can be a struggle and people need help. I call it the pickling process. For the first year, it can be like two people inside of one, man versus woman. Kind of like Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader. Sometimes things would happen that would make Bob rear his ugly head. I’ve upset a few people in the last year as estrogen and testosterone fight it out. For example, one time I was driving down Race Street and I got into it with another car. The guy rolled down his window and was yelling at me. I tried to stay calm until he yelled, “You’re a dumb cunt!” As soon as he said that, Bob came out; I threw the door open and stood up and, in my deepest manly voice, growled, “OK, asshole! Out of the car now so all these people can watch a transsexual kick your fuckin’ ass!” [Laughs] He just rolled up the window and sunk down in his seat as he pulled away. All the people around started clapping. But I don’t do that anymore. I try to think before I react. And with the estrogen, I’m much more emotional and passionate now. I cry at the dumbest things, from the SPCA commercials to military reunions, I just bawl. Music has become a major part of my life. It’s not just because the band saved my life, but I’ve become much more passionate about it. I actually want to cut an album in the near future. It’s interesting being me!

Find out more at www.justaskvicky.com.

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