By SooToday.com Staff
SooToday.com
Sunday, May 13, 2007
NEWS RELEASE
May 21, 2007 issue - Growing up in Corinth, Miss., J. T. Hayes had A legacy to attend to. His dad was a well-known race-car driver and Hayes spent much of his childhood tinkering in the family's greasy garage, learning how to design and build cars. By the age of 10, he had started racing in his own right. Eventually Hayes won more than 500 regional and national championships in go-kart, midget and sprint racing, even making it to the NASCAR Winston Cup in the early '90s. But behind the trophies and the swagger of the racing circuit, Hayes was harboring a painful secret: he had always believed he was a woman. He had feminine features and a slight frame—at 5 feet 6 and 118 pounds he was downright dainty—and had always felt, psychologically, like a girl. Only his anatomy got in the way. Since childhood he'd wrestled with what to do about it. He'd slip on "girl clothes" he hid under the mattress and try his hand with makeup. But he knew he'd find little support in his conservative hometown. . . .
By LORRI HELFAND
Published May 13, 2007
Weeks before she plans to live full time as a woman, Susan Ashley Stanton will lobby Congress.
The former Largo city manager is scheduled to meet with legislators Tuesday.
She wants to convince lawmakers to support federal legislation that protects gay and transgender people.
She won't start living as Susan until the end of this month. She could have lobbied as Steven Stanton, but she said she wanted to be authentic.
"I want to go as who I am," Stanton said. "It would almost be insulting to the legislators to go as someone else and expect them to be honest with you if you can't be honest with them."
On Monday night, Stanton also is scheduled to make a public appearance as Susan at a Washington, D.C., reception honoring transgender advocates. . . .
By Amanda Perez05/13/2007 - It's the second time a transgender teen has been in the royal court for a valley prom this year, but this time, the results are much different. . . .
May 13, 2007 - Margaret Stumpp, 54, is a vice president at Prudential Financial Inc. A 20-year veteran, she is the first openly transgender person at the firm, which has nearly 40,000 employees. Stumpp transitioned from Mark Stumpp to Maggie in February 2002, all while maintaining her position as chief investment officer for Quantitative Management Associates (a subsidiary of Prudential). When Stumpp returned to the office as Maggie, she sent this memo to her fellow employees: "From: M. Stumpp. Subject: Me." "This will be new ground for all of us," Stumpp wrote. "However, if September 11 taught us anything, it was that life is far too precious and short. Each of us must strive to be at peace with ourselves." She signed the note "Margaret." She spoke with NEWSWEEK's Lorraine Ali. . . .
May 13, 2007 - Seventeen-year-old Alexis Arquette landed her first acting role in 1986 playing a transgender in "Last Exit To Brooklyn." Eighteen years later, she went through a real transition from man to woman. Arquette, an actress, musician and cabaret drag performer, comes from a family of actors that includes siblings Patricia, David, Richmond and Rosanna Arquette, father Lewis Arquette and grandfather Cliff Arquette. She's done almost 70 films—mostly indie, some adult—but one of her most memorable roles was as the Boy George character in 1998's "The Wedding Singer." "I did play transgender characters that were comedy roles and I feel bad about that now," says Arquette, 37. "That Boy George character, it's offensive to me now." She's now starring in a forthcoming A&E documentary about her transition, "Alexis Arquette: She's My Brother," which just debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival. . . .
Saturday, May 12, 2007
If ever there was a real-life, rags-to-riches fairy tale, Theresa Sparks' story is it.
Only, this being San Francisco, Cinderella used to be a man and went from riches (traveling in a corporate jet) to rags (driving a taxi and sleeping on friends' couches) to prominence again by becoming a pioneering transgender activist and the chief executive officer of a multimillion-dollar sex-toy company.
It's not the way Sparks, 58, ever thought her life would turn out.
As she says in her profile on an Internet dating site, she's "just another San Francisco trans-woman with the uncanny ability to get myself into trouble."
But this week Sparks started what could be one of the most important chapters in her life when she was voted president of the San Francisco Police Commission. Her election shook up City Hall -- she beat out Mayor Gavin Newsom's pick for the job and prompted a prominent member of the board to resign abruptly.
After her election as president of one of the city's most powerful commissions, which oversees department operating rules and sets crucial policies, Newsom's administration is promising to work well with her, the transgender community is hailing her ascent as groundbreaking, and Sparks is enjoying the ride.
"Yesterday, I hit a new record in phone calls," Sparks said Friday, juggling a morning of interview requests from the media and meeting appointments with Newsom and other City Hall politicos. "I actually had to start counting them. Fifty-three!"
It's a far cry from the life she led a decade ago when, shortly after she transitioned from being a man to a woman, Sparks suffered countless rejections of job applications and was a near-homeless cabdriver.
"I went on 30 interviews, sent out 150 resumes," she said. "I couldn't find a job."
They were barriers Sparks never had to encounter as a male. . . .
Posted: May 11, 2007 - 11:00 am ET
(San Francisco, California) The San Francisco Police Commission has elected openly-transgender Commissioner Theresa Sparks as its new President.
Sparks, who joined the commission in 2004, has a long history of advocating for the transgender community, including working on a set of transgender-specific policy reforms adopted by the Police Commission in 2003.
Her election as President makes Sparks the city’s first openly transgender head of a major commission in San Francisco and likely the city’s highest ranking transgender official.
"I feel honored to have been selected for this position by my fellow commissioners," said Sparks in a statement.
"While I think it is important to recognize the historic step they've taken to make San Francisco a city in which everyone, regardless of our gender identity, can meaningfully contribute, I am thrilled for this opportunity to represent all of the people of San Francisco."
Sparks said that she wants to lead the Commission towards more fully realizing the police reforms endorsed by voters in 2003.
Prop H was a city initiative that passed in the fall 2003 election. It ushered in reforms to the Police Commission to improve citizen oversight of the San Francisco Police Department.
Among other things, it expanded the size of the commission, including expanding the number of Commissioners appointed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Sparks joined the larger commission in 2004 as an appointee of the Board of Supervisors.
Sparks election has not been without controversy. It led to the resignation of the current President, Louise Renne, who had backed Mayor Gavin Newsom's chosen candidate, Commissioner Joe Marshall.
FILM | washingtonblade.com
Film about transgender chorus gets screening at Lincoln Temple UCC
By
May. 11, 2007
Anyone attending a gay choral concert has experienced the strange power of seeing a group of gay men or lesbians singing together. Amplify that by about 100 percent, and you’ll get a slight idea of what it must be like to hear Transcendence, the transgender choir of San Francisco that’s the focus of the documentary “The Believers.” Music soothes the savage beast, and in this case, that beast is intolerance.
The film opens with a transgender woman, Ashley, listening to a phone message from her mother, who says she shouldn’t “give [the filmmakers] a screwed up background” during any interviews. It’s a perfect beginning for a film about misconceptions, denial and the need for community, especially since Ashley’s not just another chorus member — she’s actually one of the group’s founders.
She approached her San Francisco-based United Church of Christ’s leaders about starting a transgender chorus, and they went for it. The film follows the group from its early, off-key stages to its performances at various venues (queer and otherwise) and the recording of an album. One of the film’s selling points is that it’s not a cheerleading piece for a remarkable group of people. There is a definite journey and arc for the chorus and the individuals, giving the documentary the feel of a feature film.
EACH PERSON’S PERSONAL story is framed by the group’s growing cohesion and musical abilities, and the questions of identity and community are movingly handled for everyone profiled, including Bobbie, one of the group’s most prominent singers. Bobbie is a black, male-to-female “transgender person” (her words), who has chosen not to undergo gender reassignment surgery but lives full-time as a woman. She’s a recovering crack addict, did some time in prison and is one of the group’s strongest soloists.
For many of the singers, vocal placement and hormones are a challenging cocktail, with most singers wanting to be the soprano they’ve always dreamed of being but not having the physical voice for it. Bobbie has a killer “man’s” voice, and when it comes out of that feminized body, the experience is unearthly, exhilarating and a testament to the long and hard road that she’s walked.
Bobbie’s chorus mentor, Miss Major, is a 62-year-old transgender woman who went through shock therapy and institutionalization during the ’50s to help her become more “normal.”
DESPITE THE DIFFICULTIES of their daily lives, the chorus members look to the music and the ministry of singing to help heal themselves and their audiences. Transcendence is made up of both male-to-female and female-to-male transgender people, which makes the squabbles between gay men and lesbians seem paltry in comparison to the ability of this mixed gender group (in more ways than one) to focus and get along.
It’s not all sunshine-and-roses among the singers, but the group regularly has sit-down sessions to discuss ways to address their communication difficulties. The chorus’ ways of interacting, working, listening and playing apply as much to their ability to sustain a functioning community as to their music.
After numerous rehearsals, the chorus’ sound finally clicked (in the early days, the non-transgender conductor said, “God, they can’t sing. How am I gonna do this?”). They even performed at the UCC’s 2003 international synod, also testifying before a committee on the necessity of including transgender inclusive and affirming language as part of the church rhetoric. (In a triumphant moment for the chorus and for transgender Christians, this measure did pass.)
Music made inroads where regular speech failed, allowing them to become part of a decision-making body that, because of their voices, sent a landmark message to churches and Christians around the world. Now, that’s a good tune.
May 10, 2007 —
Kenyatta can't talk long; she has a date.
"We call them dates," she said of the men with whom she has sex for money.
Anxiously, she brushes her long dark hair off her slight shoulders and out of her smoky eyes.
Once you know that Kenyatta, 22, was born a male, her large hands and Adam's apple seem obvious. But at first -- and even second -- glance, there is little to suggest that she wasn't a girl her entire life.
She prostitutes herself "about twice a month" in order to buy the black market hormones that enlarge her breasts, raise the pitch of her voice and keep hair from growing on her face.
"Honestly," she said, "I have to pull a trick to pay for hormones."
Kenyatta is one of 25 young people spending the night at Sylvia's Place, an emergency homeless shelter for New York City's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth. . . .
By Gene Haagenson05/10/2007 - It looks like high school proms in Fresno will never be the same. After the school district changed its rules to allow a girl at Fresno High to run for prom king, a boy from Roosevelt High wants to be a prom queen.
Roosevelt High holds its prom on Saturday and one of the three candidates for queen is a boy, who likes to be thought of as a girl. The campaign for prom queen is on at Roosevelt High and Johnny Vera is stumping for votes.Johnny is a transgender. A boy, who wants to appear to his classmates, and the world as a girl. Johnny says, "You know, to start, I was never a typical boy. Cause you know, it's just a fact."
Johnny who also goes by Crystal is a cheerleader, and was class vice president last year. He was also elected homecoming prince two years ago, as a boy. For him queen is just another step.
Johnny says, "First of all, I want to run for queen because I've been very involved in my school. You know, I get along with a lot of people. I feel that I have made an impact in my school."
He was inspired to run after Cynthia Covarubias from Fresno High ran for prom king last month. Her candidacy changed school district policy, clearing the way for Johnny to run. Cynthia lost the race for king, and not everyone at Roosevelt will vote for Johnny.
Matthew Esparza, student, says, "I don't think it's good for him to be prom queen."
Action News: "How come?"
Esparza: "'Cause he's a guy. He's still considered a guy, still."
Student Colleen Aguilar says, "I think it's really cool because it's the way he wants to be, and its his choice in life, so, if he wants to go for prom queen, good luck."
But win or lose, Johnny is just happy to have the chance to try. Johnny says, "I'm just like any other girl. I'm just like any other candidate. I'm just trying to do this cause, I want to do it."
The prom is Saturday night. Now, Johnny says he's been treated well by most students at Roosevelt. After graduation he is going to fashion design school in San Francisco.
Copyright KFSN-TV, www.abc30.com, and myabc30.com. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without explicit written
 |
| Betty Crow (left) with her wife, author Helen Boyd. Photo by Haley Thayer. |
“Being trans happens to more than just the trans person,” says Betty Crow.
She should know. The trans-identified New Yorker is best know as cover girl and subject of her wife Helen Boyd’s books 2003’s My Husband Betty: Love, Sex and Life with a Crossdresser and the recently released She’s Not the Man I Married: My Life with a Transgender Husband.
The struggling actress, and web designer has spoken widely on trans issues and served as a board member for the National Center for Transgender Equality, before recognizing that her passions lay not in advocating for trans people themselves, but for their partners. “I’ve [heard] so much heartbreak…that I feel drawn towards doing what I can to let [partners] tell their stories. We need the stories of our partners and loved ones; without them we’re just a group of people existing in a void and the general public will dismiss us as such.”
Crow says that while people often think she is not getting her voice heard, she is actually quite content being the written about by her wife. “I’m okay being the subject. Completely willing, in fact. I’m all for personal transgender narratives, but I think equally valid and important points can and should be made by those who love us.”
Although Crow recognizes that transition can be a “beckoning siren, calling you and you alone,” she argues that it invariably impact others—and their relationships.
She suggests that couples often don’t survive one member’s gender transition, because the experience is more change than most people can accept. “This really can be a deal breaker for a great many partners. That’s understandable. It’s not like a gender change is something they signed on to. Having your partner change gender…certainly changes the basic equation of the partnership.”
In her partnership, Crow spends more and more of her time as a woman, but retains “some version of a boy life.” She calls her transition “non-standard,” because while she generally passes, Crow hasn’t begun estrogen treatment nor undergone gender reassignment surgeries. She’s not sure she ever will. “I got lucky enough to be physically androgynous and I’m going to explore that…before doing things that have irrevocable consequences.” Ultimately, Crow says that while she tips toward the female end of the scales, she feels more “in-between” than anything else.”
Still, Crow hasn’t ruled out the possibility that one day, “I [may] have to live my life fully and 100 percent as a woman.” Concerned that might doom her marriage, Crow insists—that for now—she’d rather remain “in-between” than run that risk. “I refuse to be a slave to something I didn’t ask for. Being transgender..isn’t and cannot be the sole thing that defines me.”
Explaining some trans women’s overtly feminized presentations, Crow argues, “Overdoing it seems like such an understandable response in a culture that so readily adores the trivialization of beauty in women. Maybe the critique…should more properly be seen in the context of our culture.”
In a short afterword to She’s Not the Man, Crow echoes some of Boyd (myhusbandbetty.com)’s feminist sentiments. “I’m not a woman (I don’t have the hubris to claim that). Until I’ve a lot more time in this world being seen, treated, and perceived as a woman, I cannot in good conscience take upon myself such a term. Don’t get me wrong, I feel female, but truly, what does that mean: feeling like woman?”
Crow has a sexual preference for other women, but she acknowledges that without experience in the lesbian community, she doesn’t really feel comfortable claiming a lesbian identity. “I really don’t want to step on anyone’s toes.”
Blind Curves, the first Blind Eye mystery co-authored by trans writer Jacob Anderson-Minshall, is available now through powells.com. Contact jake@trans-nation.org or visit Anderson-minshall.com for more information.
| By Jacob Anderson-Minshall Published: May 10, 2007 | ||
Asian American transgender activist Pauline Park considers the push for gender-neutral pronouns in the U.S. “profoundly ahistorical.” “Gender-neutral pronouns are not native to the English language,” she argues. “And—unlike in Chinese, for example—[they] feel extremely artificial to speakers of English.” Park says she’s come to understand that the historical roots of transgenderism differ in various cultures. For instance, she contends, “There was a pre-modern trans identity in virtually every Asian society, and I think it’s important for transgendered Asians to envision themselves in light of their precursors.” Co-founder of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA), the first statewide transgender advocacy organization in New York, Park is best known for spearheading the successful campaign to pass the New York City transgender rights law enacted in 2002. After leading that campaign, she (www.paulinepark.com) helped draft guidelines—adopted by the Commission on Human Rights two years later—for implementation of the statute. NYAGRA (www.nyagra.com) is a founding member of a coalition that secured enactment of the New York City’s Dignity in All Schools Act, a law making schools safe for gender-variant children. Likewise, the organization supports the statewide version of the Dignity Act—currently pending in the New York state legislature—which would prohibit discrimination and harassment in public schools throughout the state. Park argues the law is essential because transgendered and gender-variant students face “pervasive discrimination and bullying and bias harassment in schools…throughout the state.” Unfortunately, she says, “[The Dignity Act] has passed the [New York State] Assembly several times but never the Senate, whose Republican majority refuses to consider any bill with gender identity and expression in it.” At least 10 states (including California) and dozens of New York localities have passed comprehensive anti-harassment measures for their public schools. Park also serves as vice-president of the board of directors of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF). Last December, the TLDEF (www.transgenderlegal.org) honored her work by establishing the Pauline Park Fellowship. And in 2005, Park was chosen as the first openly transgendered grand marshal of New York City’s LGBT Pride march. The inexhaustible transgender activist also authors a regular blog on BigQueer.com, and has a piece in the upcoming anthology Homelands: Women’s Journeys Across Race, Place, and Time. In her essay, “Homeward Bound: The Journey of a Transgendered Korean Adoptee,” Parks writes of coming to terms with her gender identity as well as her identity as a Korean adoptee. White fundamentalist Christian adoptive parents in Milwaukee raised her and her non-transgender twin brother. “Being born in Asia and adopted and raised in the United States,” Park says, “enabled me to understand that all identities are social constructions. Just as I have come to realize that I have a distinct identity as a Korean adoptee, I have come to understand that I have a distinct identity as a transgendered woman that is different from that of a non-transgendered woman.” Although her identity may be a social construct, Park admits she can’t step away from it. “It’s not as if I’m Asian American one day and transgendered the next. When people meet me for the first time or see me on the street, they may or may not read me as transgendered, but the first thing they see is my Asian face and features, and they often make assumptions based on that Asian physiognomy.” Park says that transgendered white people need to understand that discrimination and harassment based on gender identity or expression differs in important ways from that based on race or ethnicity. “There are so many challenges facing transgendered people of color both within the transgender community and in their own communities of color. And non-transgendered people of color need to understand that there are important parallels and similarities between those two different types of experiences despite significant differences.” Trans writer, Jacob Anderson-Minshall, co-authored Blind Curves, the first in the Blind Eye Mystery series, available now. Contact jake@trans-nation.org or visit Anderson-minshall.com for more information. |
Jan. 23, 2007 - In 1973, Eric Karl Swenson was ordained in the Presbyterian Church and went to work doing what he’d always dreamed of: ministering to a congregation of the Southern Presbyterian Church in Atlanta. More than 20 years later, one dream almost ended when another began. When the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta discovered in 1996 that Swenson had finally fulfilled another lifelong desire—having sex-change surgery to become a woman—it started proceedings to revoke Swenson’s ordination.
At the time of her “transition,” Swenson did not resist the church’s questions nor blame its reluctance. “I had been in the closet for 30 years, learning to accept myself,” she says. “It is difficult for me to be angry at others for not accepting.” Married with two daughters before her transition, Swenson described her struggle, years later, in a sermon: “I had spent the better part of four decades wrestling secretly with the unreasonable and incorrigible desire to be female.” After almost three years of grueling questions and debate, the Presbytery finally agreed, 181-161, to sustain her ordination, making Swenson the first known Protestant minister to transition from male to female while remaining in office. Now 59, Swenson is tall and blond, with shoulder-length hair and an assertive manner. Erin, as she’s called, continues to work as a pastoral counselor and, she hopes, as an inspiration for others who find themselves living out, what may be, the last taboo in society, let alone organized religion.
This past weekend, Swenson and her peers gathered in the hills of Berkeley, Calif., for the first National Transgender Religious Summit at the Pacific School of Religion, an ecumenical seminary that prepares students for ordination in the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church and the Disciples of Christ. The conference, open to members of all faith traditions, is a joint project of the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) in Washington, D.C., and the Pacific School’s own Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry (CLGS). Sixty-five religious leaders attended, from Lutheran, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Unitarian, Quaker, Jewish and Agnostic communities across the country. On the agenda: denominational policy and outreach to transgender communities.
At the heart of almost every conversation that occurred during the conference was this: how does a person who chooses to live “with permanent gender ambiguity,” as one handout put it, also participate as a leader in an institution as traditional as religion?
Conference organizers think the time is right for transgendered persons of faith to come out of the closet. “Transgendered people are beginning to find their public voice with more advocates and opportunities for protection,” explains Justin Tanis, an ordained minister who helped put together the summit—and who was born female. With the House and Senate now under Democratic control, Tanis says, activists in the transgender community feel that they may finally be heard, and they are working hard to put together legislation on Capitol Hill, especially on the issue of workplace rights. No one knows how many people in the United States live with an ambiguous gender identity, either because of a firm conviction that they were born in the wrong body or because of a political ideology or youthful experimentation. But the issue has gained great resonance on college campuses of late, as well as in local legislatures and in gay activist circles. Last weekend’s conference was evidence that at least some of these people have strong religious identities as well.
The transgender issue is so new that most religious denominations have not yet made policy statements about it. In 2003, the Roman Catholic Church announced that transsexuals suffer from “mental pathologies” and should be barred from religious orders and the Catholic priesthood. Often using Biblical language to make their point, conservative Christian groups have treated transsexuals and other people with ambiguous gender as having psychological defects that can be cured with psychotherapy. Swenson, not surprisingly, objects to this characterization. “To pick out small pieces of Scripture and use them in a hateful way is damaging to me and to the Scripture,” she explains. “God says to love one another; should anything else matter?” Swenson finds evidence of God’s love, for her unique case, in Isaiah: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than songs and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.” (Isaiah 56:1-5).
Transgendered people say another difficulty is that many religious denominations reinforce gender stereotypes—conventions about women’s and men’s roles in the life of a church, for example, that pose problems for people who want to live outside those rules. “The Bible has been used incorrectly throughout history to justify slavery and to oppress women,” says Joshua Holiday, a female-to-male pastor at the LIFE (Love Is For EveryBODY) Interfaith Church in Louisville, Ky. A year and a half ago, Holiday organized a gathering of African-American transgendered people, The Transsistahs, Transbrothahs Conference (TSTB), to promote greater acceptance in the black community.
Transgendered clergy say they know that parishioners can become distracted by thoughts about what lies beneath their robes, but they hope that people in the pews can learn to see them as ministers with a holy mission. Religion, says Tanis, “is about compassion and human dignity”; he hopes the seminar will teach transgendered clergy to embrace their uncommon situation and use it for good. After going through his own transition, he says: “I had a greater sense of internal peace; I was wiser and could be a better religious leader. It is a gift to be able to see the world through more than one gender’s eyes.”
Best of the Best: Top 20 Campuses from The Advocate College Guide for LGBT Students
(in alphabetical order)
American University
Duke University
Indiana University
New York University
Oberlin College
Ohio State University
Pennsylvania State University
Princeton University
Stanford University
Tufts University
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Santa Cruz
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
University of Michigan
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
University of Oregon
University of Pennsylvania
University of Puget Sound
University of Southern California
TUCKERTON, N.J. --For nine years, he was Mr. McBeth, a substitute teacher who kept things moving along in the classroom and filled in ably when the regular teacher was out sick.
And then one September, he was Miss McBeth.
The sex-change operation William McBeth underwent in 2005 roiled this rural, conservative area when she applied to be rehired as a substitute in Eagleswood Township. Parents packed a school board meeting last winter, some decrying what they termed an experiment, with their young children as guinea pigs; others supported her right to be who she is and work at what she does best.
But then a strange thing happened a few months later: When McBeth was up for a job at a different school in the area, no one protested. In fact, no one voiced an opinion at all when she was hired.
"There's no doubt about it; they've calmed down," said McBeth, a retired marketing executive and divorced father of three.
"There's no reason I shouldn't teach," said McBeth. "Look at me as a person: Am I qualified to teach? Yes. Do I have experience? Yes. Do I have a good report card from the schools? Yes. I have nothing to hide, and I'm proud of who I am."
About 20 transgender teachers are working in classrooms nationwide, but more are in the process of "transitioning," experts estimate. That opens up a host of issues the teachers -- and their employers and students -- have to deal with.
"The question often arises: Are transgender people competent to be employees, and those questions can come from co-workers, management or students," said Chris Daley, director of the Transgender Law Center in San Francisco. "A lot of that is because there is a lack of information about who transgender people are."
David Nielsen, a librarian at Southwest High School in Minneapolis, began living as a woman in the spring of 1998 and came to school one Monday as Debra Davis. She was sued by a co-worker who objected to her using the women's restroom. The claim eventually was rejected by an appeals court, but not before local police got involved.
"I had a sex crimes detective in my building investigating me," she said.
Part of the difficulty was the suddenness of Davis' transformation.
"As far as I knew and as far as the school knew, I was among the first people to suddenly do that in a high school who worked directly with children, basically over a weekend," Davis said. "I didn't take a year off, I didn't do it over the summer. Literally, a man left on Friday and a woman came back on Monday."
She met with school officials and staff, and again with students to answer any questions they had.
"They asked, 'What do we call this person?' It's Miss Davis now, it's Debra," she recalled. "It's 'she' now. 'What bathroom is she going to use?' The kids did pretty well. Did they come to the library to see their new, improved librarian? You bet they did!"
The students were great, she said. Some festooned the hallways with signs of support, including one with the slogan "Hate Is Not A Family Value."
Not every adult was as welcoming, though.
"The people who struggled were people who struggle with diversity," she said. They were concerned that "the kids would have to have contact with someone like me who's an abomination of God."
For 72-year-old William McBeth, he had the feeling he was different from the age of 7. Growing up in Atlantic City, N.J., he would sneak into the closet to try on his mother's and aunt's clothes when no one was around, and wasn't quite sure why.
"You had these feelings that you didn't clearly recognize," she said. "You knew you were different, and you knew these were thoughts you couldn't bring up to anybody. I lived that life in fear. I did everything I could: I was a Boy Scout, a surfer, I was in the military. I ran a ski lodge in Alaska. I had a magnificent life.
"But you're living under the fear that someone would find out about you," McBeth said. "You know they wouldn't understand; I didn't understand it. It wasn't until middle age that I knew there were other people like me."
In 2003, while hospitalized for a heart condition, McBeth did some soul-searching.
"I said to myself, 'What is the one thing you've always wanted to do in your life?'" McBeth recalled. "On your deathbed, you regret not the things you did, but the things you didn't do. I said, 'Well, let's do it.'"
McBeth had a sex change operation in May 2005, after a long process of psychological evaluation, hormone therapy and electrolysis.
She said she erred by not keeping her certification as a substitute teacher current while she was out of work during the surgery. That required her to reapply, and set the stage in February for a contentious school board meeting in Eagleswood, a community near Atlantic City. One parent, Mark Schnepp, took out a full-page ad in a local newspaper urging parents to oppose the hiring.
"This person taught as a man, left for a year, and came back as a woman," Schnepp said. "My biggest problem is it's very young children in the Eagleswood school. For the young ones, it could cause tremendous confusion."
But Scott Rodas, whose son is a third-grader in Eagleswood, said McBeth's hiring "should have been a no-brainer. We should give enough credit to our children to know that someone like this isn't going to hurt them."
When McBeth was up for rehiring at the Pinelands Regional School system in September, no one said a word.
"I personally don't think there's anything wrong with it," said Katie MacPhee, a student at Pinelands Regional High School. "I can see where some people might have concerns, but people just need to get over it."
Jennifer Boylan, an English professor at Colby College in Maine and author of the best-selling autobiographical novel, "She's Not There: A Life In Two Genders," said she was concerned about how students and faculty would respond to her transition six years ago.
"Everyone was extremely supportive and generous," she said. "That surprised me, but maybe it shouldn't have. It's possible that we are all more grown up than we think."
For some who have made the transition, what's at issue goes beyond an identity change.
"This is about how we treat people in the workplace in a civil society," said Jillian Todd Weiss, an assistant professor of law and society at Ramapo College in New Jersey, who transitioned in 1998, about five years before she began teaching. "It's not about acceptance, although that would be nice. It's about law and policy, which states that it's illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis of gender."
Daley said the same rules apply to transgender teachers as anyone else.
"Just treat them like you would any other employee," he said. "Give them a supportive, comfortable work environment, and you won't have any problems."
As a child, Adrian Daniels wore hockey jerseys. He dreamed of marrying figure-skating champion Katarina Witt. And each night before he went to bed, he prayed that he would wake up the next morning with something he had always wanted: a penis.
"I always knew I was a man," says the Toronto native, now a frank 20-year-old with a neatly trimmed beard, pierced eyebrow and confident swagger.
Adrian's transition from female to male included an official name change at the age of 16, male hormones at 18, and breast-removal surgery a year later.
With each step, he bumped into people who argued that his feelings were temporary, banished him from the boys' washroom, or made him pay for being different with taunts and fists. "They thought I was a freak," he says. . . .
Do you have questions about the coming out journey? The Human Rights Campaign has a set of resources to help you along the way. Download a copy of our newly released Resource Guide to Coming Out, or read it online. Or download our Resource Guide to Coming Out for African Americans, the Spanish-language GuÃa de Recursos Para Salir Del Clóset or our guide to Living Openly in Your Place of Worship.
