Hey, I'm Jeffrey Masters, and this is LGBTQ and A.

Today's interview is a really fantastic reminder, I think, that it is impossible to separate out

LGBTQ history from world history.

Our guest is Mia Yamamoto.

She was born in 1943 and then Japanese internment camp in Arizona.

This was during World War II.

Then in the 60s, she enlisted and went to fight for the U.S. in Vietnam.

That was, despite, I should say, being against the war. After as she returned,

Mia became a criminal defense attorney and civil rights activist in Los Angeles. And then two

decades ago now, this is the day she turned 60, Mia finally decided, okay, I cannot wait

any longer. She came out then and started to live and work openly as a trans woman.

Mia joins us today to talk about all that.

She is 80 years old and still a practicing attorney.

So without further ado, this is LGBTQ&A with Mia Yamamoto.

So I just want to start at the beginning.

You were born in and spent the first few years of your life in a Japanese internment camp.

When for yourself did you realize that that was not normal, for lack of better words?

I ask it like that just because when you're young growing up, like, your home is your home.

That's your normal, right?

I left the campus when I was two years old, so I have no memory of the camps at all. I have

memory of the resettlement because we all came back en masse in 1945, 46, 47. I remember those years,

and my parents told me a lot about the camps. They were trying to explain, that's why everybody was

...