Digital Transgender Archive

Interview With Breatta Bee Amore

Breatta Bee Amore was 58 at the time of the interview. She is a black trans female living with AIDS and was assigned male at birth. She was born in Madison, Wisconsin, predominately raised in Chicago, Illinois with her father and her father’s parents, and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with her grandmother. She also lived in Kansas City, Missouri and Seattle, Washington. When she was 2, she knew she was gay, realizing she liked men when she would stare at them when they came over to her home, but not the women. Her father, a brick mason and construction worker, didn’t care when Amore came out to him, loving her anyways. Her mother, however, didn’t like it. Her father was killed in 1970 when Amore was 12. Her mother had 5 boys at the time and, when she remarried Amore’s stepfather a few years afterwards, the two adopted 4 girls and 2 boys. She didn’t tell people that she was gay, but people could tell since she was so feminine. As a kid people would bully her. She once beat up a cousin of hers who took her lunch money every day. She had two best friends as a kid who she grew up with into adulthood who were also both gay. She realized she was trans when her best friend, Deja, who is also trans, made her up, dressing her as a woman. Amore felt more comfortable and felt she looked good. Shortly after, she was hired as one of the La Femme girls as a performer the Gay 90s. She contracted HIV in 1990, and she’s been living with AIDS since 1993. She then struggled with additions to street drugs like cocaine, acid, and pills, but she’s been clean and sober since 2003. She works at a NutraSweet plant doing computer work. She used to work for the Minnesota Twins in the two World Series and other jobs she could find. She still goes to church, and she prays daily in the morning which helps her feel grateful for her life. She is currently on hormones and considering surgery. She dates and has sex with men. She will go out with a woman and have fun but doesn’t date them. She broke off getting married to her partner of 15 years when he began drinking. She worries a lot about going places by herself as a trans woman of color, afraid of harassment. She sometimes went to the Exchange, which is part of Café SouthSide, where she met other trans people through their trans support group.