Street roots., May 20, 2016, Page 6, Image 6

VENDOR PROFILE
Una Drake
W hen ride or die
Is done
BY LEONORA KO
by j.McCurdy
S T A FF W R IT E R
onor is everything for Tina Drake.
“It’s just the way I live my life,”
The thing is
Those
Ain’t
My
Bullets...
And
I ain’t
Taking one
For u
H
Answers to puzzles on page 15
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Street Roots • May 20-26, 2016
Vendors
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Tina said. “(It means) dignity,
kindness, keeping yourself honest It’s a big
thing with me.”
Tina follows her sense of honor when she
sells Street Roots at the Starbucks on
Northwest 23rd Avenue and Overton Street.
She recently bought a coffee for a
customer on her 88th birthday.
“She and I will sit there and have a
conversation while I’m selling my papers,”
Tina said. “I had a gentleman come by; he
walked past four times. He comes back to
me an hour later and he goes, ‘You know, I
have never seen anybody so kind, so cordial
with the elderly folks.’
“If you don’t live with honor, what
are you giving out to people? You’re
giving deceit; you’re giving lies,” Tina
said. “All my life, it always ate at me
because I had to hide who I actually
was to my family. It ate at me every
j
day.”.
' I
Tina was born and raised in Utah.
’
“It was a really, really hard
place for me and my
(gender) transition that
I’m going through. I mean
no disrespect to the
church, but it is a
(Latter-day Saints) rün
I
state, and the LDS is
against the LGBT
1
disorder.
Tina came out with her true self two
years ago.
“What changed for me was the death of
my mother,” she said. “She told me in her
dying breath, ‘I know who you truly are, and
I accept you.’ That (moment) was what
really gave me the strength to follow my
heart and be who I am.”
In Utah, Tina encountered negativity
about her gender identity.
“There’s been several times where I have
wanted to shut myself up somewhere and
just give up because of the way I was always
treated. Then I was told about (Portland)
and the fact that there was an open,
welcome, inviting community. And I have to
say it’s true.”
Tina moved to Portland in early March.
“I wasn’t seen as an outsider. I wasn’t
seen as being something
different, something
abnormal. I was
ib,... seen as a
person.”
| '
She met
HsK with Outside
■ H I In staff and
HB| recently
> < learned she will
begin hormone
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community as a
whole,” she said.
“I knew I was
different as early as 9,
10 years old. But
because of my family
and the church and
whatnot, I hid it*
I
1
1
As a child, she was
diagnosed with attention-
deficit disorder and bipolar
HWtette *
Physical & E m o te » ! W eM eing
Curiosity * ERgagerserrt «Gioite
treatments.
“You know that feeling you get when you
open that first present Christmas morning?
That pure joy? That’s what it felt like. It’s
becoming a whole new person, a whole new
woman. There’s so much that I missed out
on by hiding it for so long.”
Tina’s fiancée has come to terms with
the transition.
“My fiancée, bless her, has stuck with me
through thick and thin and is there for me
every step of the way,” Tina said.
They have been together for seven years.
“We’re planning on doing a handfasting,
which is an old pagan ritual,” Tina said. “It
is basically the bonding of two people, a
marriage without the license.” .
Tina credits Street Roots with helping
her through her transition.
“Finding Street Roots was honestly one
of the best things that happened to me,”
she said. “I have an income that I’m able to
purchase the things that I need - the
makeup, the clothing, things like that. I
don’t have to go around begging for money
every day. I don’t have to hold up that little
sign that says, ‘Please help me.’ I’m helping
myself by getting out there and doing this.”
Tina hopes to save enough money for a
special project: “I’m actually going to be
building a bicycle kit with a gas-powered
engine, as well as a pull-along lightweight
camper. (It’s going to be)
home wherever I’m at.”
-T
Her goal is to set
foot in every state. In
the meantime, Tina
is feeling less angry
and more positive.
“Ever since I’ve
been out here, I’ve I
actually been able to J
start being me. I have!
been so much *
happier, so much
more energetic, so
much more open,”
I she said.
“The way I look at
it: The rose has
finally started to
bloom.”
O
CENTRAL CITY
C O FFEE
£)>dnk, well. SDo-good*
0 3 a
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