Kim Kraemer Oral History Interview

In this interview, Kim Kraemer discusses her family, her relationship with Thomas Kraemer, her schooling, some of the jobs she has had throughout her life, and what tips she has for both the current and future generations. For her family, Kim talks about how her stepfather didn’t seem to like her as much as her sister and how he never encouraged her to pursue a career in mechanics. Kim also talks about how she was not really too close to her sister, and still isn’t to an extent due to her sister being a born-again Christian with rather homophobic views. For her relationship with Thomas Kraemer, Kim talks about how they met, some of his experiences as being an out gay man, and his contributions to the LGBTQ community after his retirement. Kim also talks about how she had to help him with his work for the archives as his health declined. For her schooling and jobs, Kim talks about how she took mechanics classes all through high school, and how she was not able to fully pursue what she wanted to in college due to not doing well in math. Kim talked about how she took summer jobs working on boats and later had a job working at an auto shop in Corvallis and being a “novelty” at those places due to (biologically) being female. Kim says for current and future generations to make transgender (and LGBTQ in general) lives be better would be to accept people for who they are and to let them express themselves however they want.