Written By: Kaytee Weidenfeld
She said she labeled herself as a drag queen until she turned 17 and realized she was more than that.
“I wasn’t performing for anyone when I would put on a dress and sit around and watch The Golden Girls,” Sparks said. “I was just trying to be me.”
The only time she felt happy was when she was wearing a dress, she said.
Sparks said she was well aware of her sexuality before she was aware of her gender identity as a transgendered female.
There are two parts to transitioning, mental and physical, she said, and the mental transition is the harder of the two.
Sparks said she started the mental transition at 17 and the physical transition at 19 years old.
“Not only do you see yourself change, but the people around you have to change,” Sparks said. “It can be a very painful process for you and for them. It’s a slow journey.”
Her siblings were accepting of her transition, however, her parents were not, she said.
Sparks was born in Atlanta and raised in Marietta, Georgia, a small town an hour north from there, she said.
She said being from a small town she has experienced inequality many times, even within her own community of lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ).
By being transgender, she is a subset within the LGBTQ community, a minority within a minority, Sparks said. She said a lot of LGBQ feel transgender individuals are the clowns of the community and distract from the cause.
“I’m used to walking through the grocery store hearing ‘faggot’ being hollered over the aisles, having my tires cut, or having my car spray painted,” Sparks said. “My own father took a Sharpie and drew all over my car. It’s pretty normal where I grew up.”
One of the biggest issues for the transgender community is not being able to have the basic human right to use the restroom in the gender they prefer to live their lives, she said. In most states transgender individuals have to legally use the restroom in the gender they were born labeled, Sparks said.
Sparks said one time she was harassed and accosted by a group of lesbians for using the female restroom at a public restaurant, in which she worked as a young adult and knew to be a single-stalled restroom.
She said they must have seen her head toward the restroom, because before she knew it they were trying to break down the stall door.
“The police ended up being called and I nearly got my butt kicked for using the women’s room by a group of lesbians who looked more manly than I did,” Sparks said.
She said a lot of things people take for granted are a lot more difficult for transgender individuals.
Sparks said things like going to the airport, getting X-rayed, and going to the doctor are much harder for trans-identified people.
It is especially difficult when a transgendered person is arrested and could potentially be put in a harmful situation if not segregated, she said.
Being transgender is much different than being gay or lesbian, she said.
Sparks said gays and lesbians could easily pretend to be straight long enough to get themselves out of a scary situation, and transgender individuals cannot.
Sparks has a combination faith; she said she grew up Southern Baptist, but found a more accepting home in the pagan community.
Now 30 years old, she is a legally ordained minister in the pagan and Christian faith, she said, making her a practicing witch and practicing Christian. Sparks said she likes to put her own spin on things.
Her siblings didn’t understand her belief system, so they called her intertwined faith “Angelism.”
When Sparks isn’t working she enjoys making wine and spending time with her two furry babies, Tucker, a black Labrador, and Tiger, a gray and white feline, she said.
Sparks said she also loves going to the shooting range, as she runs and grabs her “zombie killer,” a Hi-Point 45 caliber Carbine.
Sparks is also active in the community.
She was part of Pink Pistols for a long time, an LGBT pro-gun organization with the motto “armed gays don’t get bashed.” She said the organization would help LGBT people purchase firearms, and teach them how to safely and legally use it.
Sparks is also a part of the welcoming committee at the Southern Comfort Conference, a transgender conference featuring events and seminars, she said.
She met her current boyfriend at the Southern Comfort Conference, Ryan Scott, who identifies as a transgender male, she said.
She said it was his first time there, and he was very shy and pre-transitioned at the time. Over the course of three days she proceeded to run him down in her jazzy wheelchair and hit on him to the max, she said.
“I took flirting to a whole new level,” Sparks said, as she giggled. “I wasn’t very sincere about it at first, it was kind of a way to get him out of his shell and get him to laugh.”
They have been together for five years, she said.
Scott, a UNC Asheville sociology major, from Wilmington, said he wouldn’t have started his transition without her.
“She’s the one who gave me the drive to finish community college and come up here and get hormones through the transgender program,” he said. “Without her, I would of never met great transgender people and been on my journey.”
Sparks and Scott both love Asheville, they said.
Sparks said she has never felt more loved and accepted anywhere else, and finds more of a home here than back in Georgia.
SIDEBAR:
The Rev. Angel Sparks, an ordained minister in both the pagan and Christian faith, met the love of her life at the Southern Comfort Conference in Atlanta.
Sparks is a part of the welcoming committee at the Southern Comfort Conference, and she said it’s her job to assist the newcomers and put them into groups. She said her chosen father would point them out.
She said thousands of people attend this event every year, and her power wheelchair gets a lot of attention and she loves that.
“With Ryan it was instantly magnetic; I was pulled to him,” Sparks said. “I just kept hitting on him and playing with him, and making him laugh.”
Ryan Scott said Sparks followed him around for three days.
He said she would run him down in the lobby in her electric chair, as he firmly points to the chair across the room, a bald doll’s head over the control lever. He said she was literally running his ankles over and grabbing his crotch.
She said on the last night of the conference that year there was a ventriloquist show.
“I thought to myself,” Sparks said. “If I could at least have him as my best friend for the rest of my life I would die happy.”
After the conference they parted ways, she said, but still kept in contact through Facebook.
The more they talked the more they realized they were supposed to be together, she said. She said by Valentine’s Day the following year she started looking for a place in Wilmington.
