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It started in middle school. Once, a group of girls locked me in the janitor's closet. Another time, a girl spilled chocolate milk down a dress I made. Girls would try to trip me in the hallway.

My parents sent me to Montreal because I kept getting kicked out of school in France.

I used to run away from school to my village. But later, I went to the U.S. for studies and lost touch.

When I was a child and they burned me out of my home, I was frightened and I ran away. Eventually I ran far away. It was to a place called France. Many of you have been there, and many have not. But I must tell you, ladies and gentlemen, in that country I never feared. It was like a fairyland place.

I went to an all-girls' Christian convent school run by nuns. It was fun, but when I was 15, I said, 'Mum, that's it - I need to go where there are some boys.'

My parents sent me from Venezuela to the Convent of Our Lady, a boarding school in Hastings, which was horrible - like Harry Potter without the magic. Sometimes we went into town, and if we were caught chewing gum in our uniform, members of the public would take down our names and report us to the school.

I got thrown out of school several weeks in my senior year being caught in the girls' dorm. This was 1954, friends. The girls' dorm was off limits. Even to girls, I think.

At 13, when I was a runaway, I was taken in by the most amazing drag queens in Portland, Ore. We didn't always know where our next meal was coming from, but there was so much camaraderie and love. Not to mention, those girls could paint a face, and I learned how because of them.

We went to a very small high school. It was, like, in a wooded house; it was a weird school. I hung out with a lot of guys in high school, and I did theater with a few of my close girlfriends.