FoRCC for Friends, part 1

FoRCC, or Friends of Randolph Country Club, a Massachusetts transgender social and support group, was a lengthy interview Beck’s Cafe had with two Massachusett’s transgender-women who are leaders in the community; Yvon Steel and June Casad. There are many personal and group stories and courageous trans-women and trans-men, dating back to Stonewall, who have made being transgender just a little easier for many of us today. Jennifer Boylan, in her speech at Southern Comfort Conference 2006 last year, said that, “there are so many other stories out there, and they all desperately need to be told, so that all of our stories can become familiar”. This is just one of those many stories. This is a special four part series from this interview. Please enjoy!

—————

“One is taught by experience to put a premium on those few people who can appreciate you for what you are” - Gail Goodwin

Gail Goodwin’s quote may well be the story in one line of the transgender social and support group, the Friends of Randolph Country Club (FoRCC). This group, in existence for ten years, has typified that quote: appreciating others for who they are, as they are; not for who society believes they should be. Yvon Steel and June Casad are two of the founders of this long standing group. We caught up with them in the midst of their most recent event at The Randolph Country Club in Randolph, Massachusetts to learn more about this group and how their unique history is a part of the history of the transgender community in New England.

BECK’S CAFE: I’m glad we could finally get a chance to talk in the midst of this busy Fall season for you both.

YVON: Busy is right, with our event and so many others taking place in the Fall, life can seem like whirlwind

JUNE: We try to float through it. It’s busy but fun no question about that.

BECK’S CAFE: Can you tell our readers how the Friends of Randolph Country Club started?

YVON: FoRCC, as we like to call it, or the Friends of Randolph Country Club. We’ve been around continuously for ten years at least, since about 1997. It was originally started by a woman named Holly then when she left ownership was handed over to Diane, June, Brenda, and I came in later. We originally started meeting at Friends Landing in Haverhill and kept our connections alive through the use of a Yahoo group. The Yahoo group was a great tool for all of us to collaborate together and keep the group as a group. Actually the groups original name was FoF or Friends of Friends Landing.

BECK’S CAFE: Ten years is a long time, it may be that only Tiffany Club of New England has had a longer existence. What do you think is the reason the FoRCC Community has been able to last this long?

JUNE: FoRCC is really organic and changes over time. With a lot of other groups that have come and gone, usually they get a big splash right away and are really driven by one person with a vision and energy to make it happen. FoRCC on the other hand, while it began with Holly’s vision, it never really had to rely on her singular person to make it happen. It was a sort of infectious need the transgender community felt and got behind. We never had a lot of rules or moderating either in our group meetings or in our online Yahoo group. It’s just been a place where people have felt safe to come out. And we’ve always supported people who have done that.

YVON: That’s true June. We found that our group culture just thrived on being more relationally in touch. It became clear to us that we were less “leaders” in the group as much as we were “facilitators” of this group. We saw that too many rules and one person in charge would stifle what was blossoming. We never wanted to have that. As long as people were respectful of each other anything was okay.

JUNE: We have never tried to moderate the content of our Yahoo Group or our in person meetings but when things have been deemed offensive and disrespectful we just simply squash what is happening and move on.

——————–

In Part two of this four part series, we’ll talk about the historic incident that changed much of the transgender landscape in Massachusetts today. To easily reach part 2 please click here. Copyright© 2005 - 2007 Beck’s Cafe, All rights reserved.