Men of the Skull Interlude XI: Fingernails

 Second to last of the interludes for Men of the Skull.  This one is about Linda Lewis.

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Interlude XI: Fingernails

Saturday December 28, 2013  Judge Upholds N.S.A.’s Bulk Collection of Data on Calls

Well, I guess it should start back when I found out about her.  My femme side resurfaced in 2008- that is true- but I knew about trans sites before that.  Around 2001, I was doing an internet search for fiction sites so I could post my work, and Fictionmania came up: a transgender story site.  I remember starting to read a story there and I was hooked.  I couldn't believe that there was a site that had stories such as these- stories that spoke to something that I had long buried.  From there, I started looking up other transgender sites, and very quickly after I found Linda.

Linda ran a website at the time, with pictures and her interviews from various magazines like Ladylike and such.  She also has a Flickr page, where she has thousands of fans. She was amazing, gorgeous, and untouchable: an Icon.  And she still is.

Heck she even appeared in ads!  When I re-awakened in 2008, I started looking for things that would improve my figure etc.  One of the places I found made scientifically designed hip pads for Trans people.   A new one had just come out and there, on the ad, was Linda- sitting on a stool in a red dress looking absolutely stunning.  Later in my search, I found a site that sold breast prosthetics, and there she was again- modeling the breast prosthetics.  I was like "this woman is everywhere!" and again I thought she was some kind of Royalty.  In addition, she did transformation makeup in Hollywood at Jim Bridges’ salon near a place called the Queen Mary.

In 2009, that I sent Linda a Flickr message, asking her about the breast and hip prosthetics.  She kindly responded, and I felt I'd been touched by the hand of God. 

Years later, Linda posted something on social media.  I forget exactly what it was, but she seemed very down.  She had a health scare of some kind, which I later found out was a collapsed lung.  She needed financial help, so I sent what I could.  It was then that she and I started chatting online.  I found out that we had a lot of movies and music in common.  A tenuous friendship began.

I decided that I was going to go to the Southern Comfort Conference.  A few of us wanted to help Linda attend as well.  Now this is saying something because Linda is a very proud person and doesn't like asking for help.  We figured out a way to get her a hotel room- she would room with a friend I knew, and between us we paid for her transportation.  I didn't realize when this started that by the time Southern Comfort came around, my life would have completely turned upside down.

At a mall in Atlanta, SCC 2013

And it was there I met Linda, and we became friends… when I wasn’t making her angry.

A couple months later, she was supposed to move down to Florida.  The details there are personal, I’ll skip them.  However, she was delayed- she couldn't move down to Florida, but her lease was up in Michigan.  She had nowhere to go.  I asked my dear friend M, with whom I was staying, if she could put Linda up for a couple weeks.  She readily agreed, because she is the kind of person who Helps.  So it was that in late December 2013, I met Linda in her drab mode at State College, Pennsylvania, where we had agreed to meet. (Only a week before, I was headed this way during a snowstorm to blow my head off, but I turned around.)  It was a rainy, snowy, messy day, and she followed me from there back to the house where we would both stay for another six months.  I lived on the second floor, while she lived in the basement, but it was during that time that I got to know the woman behind the Legend. 

Tuesday, December 31, 2013.  Bomb Attacks in Russia Echo Threats by Chechen Insurgent

Sandy Empanada was coming north to go to the Raven on New Years Eve.   I didn’t want to go as my knee still hurt from a bone bruise suffered in a workplace accident a couple of weeks before.  But I wanted to be there for Sandy, as this would be her first New Years without Lisa.  Linda had settled into the house and was willing to go out.  I wanted to introduce her around to the Trans Community here.  That's one thing she didn't have in Saginaw, Michigan: a community.  So, I went. 

I wanted to impress her with my makeup skills, so I tried a few things I’d learned here and there.  I then waited in the kitchen for Linda to emerge.  She took one look at me and said “Oh HELL NO!  Sit DOWN!”  My heart sank!  She pulled a chair from the dining room as I went to get my makeup per her demand.  She completely redid my look while teaching me some techniques I never knew.  M teased out my wig.  Not just teased- she got absolutely sadistic with it!  And it looked great!  I received so many compliments all night.  Linda met many people of the Philly Trans scene.  And she danced the night away while getting rather tipsy.  I didn’t drink, as I was worried about all the other drivers and police.

Raven NYE 2013

I thought Linda would just be there for a few weeks.  However, she kept getting delayed through no fault of her own.  Eventually she gave up on Florida, found a job, and we decided to get an apartment in Pennsylvania.  We moved out, found a third roommate Zoey (without whom we would have been on the street- and we will be forever in her debt.)  We lived there for a year, then moved from place to place, hanging on by our fingernails as jobs for me were sporadic.  As of this writing, she is my roomie in State College.  No one will ever replace Lisa, but Linda has helped my soul heal.  And hopefully, I’ve been able to help her as well.

Men of the Skull Interlude X: Goodbye

 

Interlude X: Goodbye 

Friday, September 20, 2013  Russia: Coast Guard Boards Greenpeace Ship in Arctic

The body was in drab.  It was Tom dressed in a suit.  The shirt was purple, as that was Lisa's favorite color.  I knew that under his shirt was an Underarmor constriction shirt to hide Lisa's breasts.  His black hair was slicked back and his hands were folded over his abdomen.  He was heavily made up.  In the hairline I could see why.  The skin was hot pink (a side effect of carbon monoxide poisoning.)  I looked at the face for a moment, and I could see Lisa's feminine features.  This... guy... whom I never met, was indeed Lisa.  

Tom.  An army veteran.  A contractor.  A former male exotic dancer called “Lance.”  Tried desperately to fight against an inborn torment.  As do I.

 

What can I say?

Lisa Empanada was gone.

 

Lisa was a Sister to me.  She was close as blood.  Closer.  We talked about everything and anything.  We explored the darkness that I knew, and that eventually took her.

We laughed.  Oh, how we laughed.

And we cried.

Lisa, to the world, was about happiness.  She had endless compassion.  Full of love.

Some would say it was love that caused her to do what she did.  They would be wrong.

Lisa was no stranger to Love.  When she passed, the internet became a tidal wave of love for her.  People related stories.  Wrote poems.  Quoted songs.  If Lisa saw it all, she would roll her eyes, blush,  and laugh.

Lisa was loved because she loved.  She loved everyone.  But the love her life was her wife, Sandy.  They are truly soulmates.  

And Lisa left her behind.

She planned her death.  Meticulously.

On Monday September 16, the sun rose on Lisa's last day here on earth.  She left work at noon, and her foreman said she had a strange and sad look to her face.  The last person that we know saw her alive was a neighbor who saw her cleaning out the back of a Painting van.  The same van that she used to attempt suicide months ago.  The one with the gas powered compressor in the back.  She never cleaned out that van.  See, she wasn't the tidiest person.

She left a couple of things in the house for Sandy, including a short message, written with lipstick on a mirror.  Sandy showed me the mirror.  The message. 

From there, the details are known only to Lisa and God.  

So what can I say?

 

Lisa's last phone call was just after 10 AM to the foreman of the job she was working.  It lasted under two minutes.  She said "I'll be back to stain the stairs."

  

Sandy spoke to the man who found Lisa's body.  She told me what he said.  The van was there at 3 PM. ( Last prior sighting was 11:30 AM.)  The man saw it pull up and park across the road from his house, but this was not unusual.  The next morning, the van was still there, so he went over to look in it.  He looked in the front window and saw what he thought was a Hispanic sleeping in the back.  He went to the rear doors and opened one.  Lisa's foot flopped out lifelessly.  The man called the police.

 

Lisa was found with the pink stuffed animal, Mudsey, under one arm.  Keys were in the other hand.  Between that arm and her chest, facing out, was the wedding picture.  It slid there after she died.  The necklace and wedding ring were on her.  Tina's makeup bag was next to her.  In the bag was her carry letter and her driver's license.  The machine was NOT running, as it automatically shuts off after 4 hours.  

            The police who moved everything to the front seat to remove the body.  Lisa died with representations of her loved ones with her.  Since the estimated time of death was somewhere between 6 and 9 PM, and the van was parked there at 3, what did Lisa do before starting the compressor?  My educated guess is that it took maybe ten or fifteen minutes for the van to fill with the poison gas.  From there, it would take ten minutes for her to die, quietly.  She just fell asleep and left this world.  

 

I like to think those hours were filled with Lisa fighting for possession of Tom, trying to stop what was happening.  Maybe she sat crying in the van.  Maybe my estimate is all wrong, and it took her hours to die.

 In any case, Sandy didn't go upstairs to see the note left for her until 9 that night.  By the time the search began, Lisa was already gone.

 

The person driving the van was Tom.  Tom was Lisa's birth name, and Tom was a tortured soul.  He drove the van to a different part of the city, miles away.  Maybe he went elsewhere first.  No one knows when he parked the van.  Tom brought with him something to represent each of his children, his "carry letter" stating Lisa was Transgender, and his drivers license.  He brought a framed wedding picture.  These items he laid on the front seat in plain sight.  A necklace with LISA in script letters that Sandy gave him.

And he brought a pillow.  Sometime during that day or night, he started the compressor, lay his head on the pillow, and waited for the carbon monoxide to do its work.  Which it did.

It did.

And Lisa died.  Tom took her from us.

Sandy returned home from work, saw what was left for her, and started calling around, and texting people.  She called the police and filed a missing person's report.  

 

The message written in lipstick on the mirror: “Truly Madly Deeply.”

 

Their wedding song.  Her promise to Sandy.  Broken.

 

Tuesday September 17, 2013.  Lisa and Sandy's Eighth Wedding Anniversary.

 

I woke early that day.  4 AM.  And I saw messages from several people asking if I'd heard from Lisa.  I hadn't, which was unusual.  In fact, my last message from her was Saturday early morning, September 14, at 12:44 AM.  She wished me a happy belated birthday, as well as something else, which I will not write here.  That one is just for me.

It was odd I hadn't heard from her for a couple of days.  I wondered if I'd pissed her off.  But she had pushed me away.  As she had with everyone over the previous week, one by one.  She had her plan, and wasn't going to be deterred.  Not this time.

I contacted Sandy, offered to help.  She said it wasn't necessary- that the police were on it.

At 1 PM, I received the text that I expected and dreaded from Sandy.  And with it, I left work and headed south toward Baltimore at high speed.

"They found Lisa in Essex.  She's gone."

And with that, my life changed.

My Sister was gone.

From the funeral

I read once that people who attempt suicide have three things in common, and that all three need to be present: “Thwarted belongingness" or feeling alone; "Perceived Burdensomeness" or feeling like a burden; and "Capability for Suicide" or I am not afraid to die.

Lisa and I talked a lot as we moved forward through our lives.  She would come up to Pennsylvania for transgender events.  We would hug and laugh when we were together.  It wasn't until later that we cried.

And when she suddenly stopped her Facebook account in the spring, we spoke for hours as she fought the Darkness.  She was suicidal.  She had a plan and wasn't going to be turned from it.  She attempted suicide, but her daughter found her in time.  

She got help.  And with Sandy's love, we thought she turned everything around.  But it was a lie.

She was not afraid to die.  Nor was I.  And we understood each other.

 

She went full time as a woman, except for work.  There was a party for her thrown by her family.  I was honored to attend.  An Affirmation Party.  On her 52^nd birthday.

Lisa was angelic and happy.

After her party, I wrote her a letter that came to me in a dream.  I sent it to her via FB message.  And she wrote back.

I can't comment other to say...thank you so much. I am crying but I don't know if I am happy or sad. I feel pain for what could have been and for what I might have done to you and others, yet those missteps brought me to a real life dream come true. Yet still those feelings, that pain, so familiar to both of us is haunting. Thank you Sophie! 

She used what I wrote as a part of what would be the finest thing I ever read from her.  And the most horrific.  But I'll get to that in a moment.  

Then we discussed my transition plan, and she wrote this:

It is a sometimes seemingly horrendous journey. Thankfully we don't have to do it alone. Take my hand.......

I am so thankful that you extended yours 

 

And so I did.  We would transition together.  Sisters.  A promise of shared experiences. Never alone.

 

So what can I say? 

We all thought the darkness was gone.  It wasn't.

No.  It never left her.  And she knew we were all watching, so she hid it from all of us.  

 

After her April attempt, Lisa told me many times that I saved her life.  I didn't.  And I have found myself thinking about that.  Was that a waste of time?  And it struck me.  No.  It wasn't.  It bought us all five extra months of Lisa.

We all had five months more of her in our lives.  Her smile.  Her words.  I personally had one of the most moving and affirming experiences of my life thanks to her party.

Right now, I'd give everything but my wife and daughter to speak to Lisa for just a minute.  To hold her close and feel her tears.  But we had five months of "borrowed time" already.

Lisa broke all her promises.  She promised we would transition together.  She promised to call me before the Darkness took her.  She didn't.  And she's gone.

 

Friday, September 20, 2013   Joseph N Zannino Funeral Home,  Baltimore, MD.

There was to be no funeral.  Lisa didn't want one.  Yet two viewings were scheduled.  The first was 3-5 PM and the second was 7-9.  Unannounced was another viewing for family only from 2-3 PM.

 

I walked slowly up the stone steps to the door of the funeral home.  Inside the light seemed dim compared to the brilliant sunlight outside.  To the left of the small foyer was a small guest book, which I signed.  Once past the foyer, I saw my friend Hayden, dressed all in black (which actually wasn't unusual for him.)  He pulled me aside and said "Sandy wants you to have this."  

He gave me the Four-leaf Clover necklace that I had sent to Lisa a lifetime ago (was it only a couple of months?)   I looked at the small silver charm and necklace in my hand, and my eyes began to mist.

 

There were maybe sixty people there, mostly family.  I saw few people I knew and spoke to them briefly, with my back to the casket.  Then I turned to face it.  

 

I knelt at the provided kneeling thing, and said a prayer for Lisa.  I then looked into the lifeless face... and bitched her out for over a minute, crying the whole time.  "You were supposed to call when you felt this way.  Now look at you- decaying in men's clothing!"  I then stood and headed out the door, all but bawling.  

 

Funeral Home that night

There was a break for dinner. I was sitting on the curb when they told me.  A mess.

 

When everyone returned from dinner, the funeral home was packed!  So many people!  So many transpeople had come out to pay tribute and say goodbye to Lisa.  Maybe 120 people, mostly us.

 

I re-entered and went back to the casket, where I waited in line for my turn.  The room was stifling hot- packed with people.  My personal Hell.  Eventually it was my turn.  I knelt again, and said another prayer for Lisa.  I then quietly caught her up with events in my life, as I used to when she was alive.  Again, I cried the whole time.  This time I reached out and touched her arm.  Stone cold.

 

After I hugged Sandy again, I went to the back of the room.  Someone had made a book of pictures of Lisa and her writings.  I was told I was "all over the book."  And I was.  In it were several pictures of Lisa and I together.  Also there was the piece I wrote for her, as well as her description of receiving the necklace I gave her.  The necklace that was then zipped into an inner compartment in my purse.

 

Soon a priest appeared.  He was older, Italian, and spoke with an accent.  He summoned "immediate family only" to the front of the room.  So it family in the front, transgender people in the back.  I stood next to my friend Cecilia from Harrisburg.  Many of us looked at each other in confusion.  Why was there a priest there?  Lisa was anti-religion!  I found out later that Sandy asked him there for her comfort, as she was Catholic.

 

The priest started by referring to "Brother Tommy" and led everyone in prayer.  Then he started in with "everyone knew about Tommy's identity issues" and kept on going.  "The pope has ordered we clergy to be tolerant of these poor misguided individuals" and "God will forgive them anyway," Cecilia and I held hands, both of us squeezing very hard.  All of us were so incredibly angry!  This... person... was not only insulting the deceased but also insulting over two thirds of the people in the room!  I had a clear line of sight to his face and glared at him angrily.  My eyes never leaving his face.  I was so pissed off!

 

The priest finished with a prayer, and left quickly.  He was a busy man.    

 

Lisa’s daughter, Kay then stepped to the spot he had vacated and introduced herself.  She spoke of how she was Lisa's daughter, and how so many of us never met Tommy, only Lisa, and continued from there to paint a loving portrait of the Lisa we all knew.  She always referred to Lisa, not Tom, and to her as "my mom."

 

She redeemed the service in all of our eyes.  And I told her so. 

After Kay finished, there was another line to visit the coffin, and I joined it.  Eventually it was my turn.  The moment I dreaded was here- the moment I prayed would never, ever come.  It was time to say goodbye to one of my best friends.  To my "transition buddy."  To my Sister.  

 

To Lisa.

 

I saw her last at the Southern Comfort conference in Atlanta.  I cried on her shoulder for an eternity.  The last thing she told me was that only by being whole... by being Sophie, could I be the best possible parent to my daughter.  She urged me to be the best parent to my daughter that I could.  When we hugged goodnight, she held me firmer and longer than ever before.  I thought it was because I was upset. 

I know now she was saying Goodbye.

I never said goodbye to her.  Tom deprived me of that.

All we have left are memories and questions for which we will never know the answers.  What were her last thoughts on Earth as she drifted off to that final sleep?  Was she smiling and at peace, like she wrote before?  Or did she cry, knowing who and what she was leaving behind?  

We know the last thing she heard- the sputtering rumble of a gas-powered compressor that was her chosen method.

Now we are all without her.  And there is pain.  Why did she do it?  She told us all.

She felt she was hurting Sandy.  And she couldn't stand it.  A burden.

Yes, Tom died of Carbon Monoxide poisoning.  That's a medical fact.  But Love was not the true reason Tom did this.

No.

Tom died because he was transgender.  And that fact led him to his death.  As sure I am of my daughter's love.  Being trans, Lisa believed she no longer belonged.  To Sandy.  To anyone.

Tom died, taking Lisa with him.  Taking my Sister.  My dear friend.  

And I cried for days.

 

I again knelt and offered one last prayer in her presence.  I then looked into her pale, dead face and told her how I loved her, and how I would carry her in my heart all the days of my life.  That I would live by her example of welcoming everyone, and of loving all.  I placed one of my business cards in the crook of her left arm, on the back of which I had written "Goodbye Lisa.  I will always love and miss you."  I then said that to her as I held her lifeless right arm.  I then said goodbye, crying like I'd never cried before or since.  I turned my back on the coffin, on Lisa, and left the funeral home.  Now I had to do the impossible: go on with my life without her.

 

She was cremated the next morning.  All the beauty that was Lisa.  Her smile, her eyes, were now ash.  

 

From the funeral, the family and a few transpeople went to Lisa’s favorite bar, which was close to where she lived.  After a drink, I walked to Lisa and Sandy's house.  Sandy had asked me to come over.  Upon arrival, I sat with Sandy and her daughter Tina.  We sat and spoke quietly about some private things.  I looked over at a table and again saw the wedding picture that Lisa had with her in that horrible van.  It smelled of fumes.  Still does.

 

Sandy and Tina told me some private things that made me cry again, but I also smiled through my tears.  She then led me downstairs to the basement, where, hanging everywhere were Lisa's things.  And she pointed out several full suitcases- all full.  Lisa was quite the shopper!  As she and I were the same size, Sandy started stuffing a bag with dresses and tops.  She tossed in six wigs, two of which had never been worn.  She then disappeared around a corner and said "wait here a sec."  

 

She returned holding a white floral dress: the one Lisa wore to her Affirmation Party.  Sandy said "you should have this."

 

I said "I... I am not worthy of this."

 

Sandy said "I can't think of anyone Lisa would've wanted to have it more than you."

 

I took the dress and looked at it.  I then placed it in the bag.  I still have never worn it.  It hangs empty in my closet.

 

We spoke for a little while longer, and then hugged.  I took my leave, and placed the bag in my car. 

 

At 1:30 AM, we were in the driveway of the house where I was staying.  I went inside and removed my black dress- the dress I was wearing the night I met Lisa.  I never wore that dress again.  I pulled off my wig and collapsed into bed without removing my makeup and slept a dreamless sleep.

  

 

Over the years, I’ve looked for a silver lining to all this. 

 

I previously mentioned the article on Suicide.  And it fit Lisa to a T.  As it has me a few times in my life.  And survived. 

I was so close to calling out to my Sister "Hey Lisa! Wait up!  Let's explore the Light together!" and following her away.

So what can I say?  I didn’t follow.  I learned that my sisters are there for me.  They've proved it those horrible days.  I know I will never be alone.  And even if they are not, I will always have Lisa in my heart, where I will keep her all the days of my life.

I would transition to the Woman I truly am and carry Lisa with me into the life she denied for herself.

A saying I heard later applies: “I am because she was.” 

 

There have been many ways people have said "Goodbye" over the years.  I could paraphrase Shakespeare.

"Goodnight Sweet Princess.  And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."

 

I think it's appropriate to give my sister Lisa the last word.  This is from a piece she posted on Facebook on December 24, 2012 at 8:27 AM. The last line is so appropriate to her memory.  it distills Lisa to her essence.  

Can you take some stuff away from us? We have too much of somethings that no one should have so much of. Could you please stop by on Christmas and take away the doubt. Can you remove the tremendous pain and grief from our shoulders...so many of us are buckling under the weight. Could you take away the nightmares that haunt our waking hours. Can you take away the feeling of loneliness? Can you take away the skepticism that we can ever manage to believe in the magic that moves us?

Santa, can you take away our fears. We have too many of them already. If you can, please do. Because so many of us are trapped by fear and doubt, by regret and a lack of confidence.

If you could just take this stuff away ... or find a way to help us to, I know we can be stronger and soar higher. I know we can be the Angels on Earth we are destined to be.

 

The angel flew and left me here—

As I was destined to be.

Dallas Denny's Keynote and Shoutout

Last week, I was stunned to hear that the legendary Dallas Denny quoted me in her TG Forum piece, which was from a keynote speech she delivered.  (Link to the TG Forum pieces HERE)

On the extremely unlikely chance that you've never heard of her, the following bio is from her website (linked above)

"Dallas Denny has been a leader in the transgender rights movement since the 1980s. Her work as an advocate,  writer, editor, and community builder have played a significant role in the advancement of rights for transsexual and transgender people in North America and around the world."

(from Wikipedia) "In 1990 Denny founded the 501(c)(3) nonprofit American Educational Gender Information Service (now Gender Education & Advocacy, Inc.). In the same year she started the Atlanta Gender Explorations Support Group and launched the print journal Chrysalis Quarterly. In 1993 she founded the National Transgender Library & Archive, which now resides in the Labadie Collection at The University of Michigan Library System. Also in the 1990s she continued the work of the Erickson Educational Foundation. She was a founder of Atlanta's transgender Southern Comfort Conference and provided start up funding, through AEGIS, for the first FTM Conference of the Americas. She was Director of the transgender conference Fantasia Fair for five years and from 1999-2008 editor of Transgender Tapestry Journal, published by the International Foundation for Gender Education.

Since 1989 Denny has produced dozens of flyers, booklets, and medical advisories, contributed considerable content to Chrysalis, AEGIS' several newsletters, and Transgender Tapestry, and written a column for TG Forum. She wrote hundreds of articles for transgender community magazines and newsletters, many of which were widely reprinted and eventually placed on the internet. In 1994 her book Gender Dysphoria: A Guide to Research was the first book-length contribution to the scientific literature of transsexualism produced by a transsexual."

Add to that, she's been a mentor and friend.  I'm honored beyond words that she would cite my work.  In any case, here's the piece, reprinted in full with her kind permission.  Please hit the TG Forum link to give her some hit love there too.

Dallas Denny (from FB)

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The following are my notes for the keynote I delivered at the third Paradise Conference, which was held in Atlanta from April 18-21, 2024. My thanks to TGForum contributor Sophie Lynne for her recent article here about anti-trans legislation and to Jamison Green, Chelsea Goodwin, and Lola Cola, for our conversations.

Here’s a link to Sophie’s article.

Disinformation, Misinformation, and Cognitive Dissonance

Keynote, Paradise Conference 2024

By Dallas Denny

Hello, everyone. It’s great to see old friends and friends soon to be live and in person.

I’m honored to have been chosen to give this keynote. I would like to thank Toni Cane and the board of directors of Paradise Conference for giving me this opportunity to address you.

Conferences like this are important. Contact with one another on social media and via e-mail is also important, but it doesn’t replace face-to-face contact. When we arrive here, we are with our tribe, and we know it and respond to it. We are loved without reservation and free to be ourselves, a luxury many of us don’t have in our everyday lives. So thank you, everyone, for being here.

I intended to talk today about something I have never really addressed in public—my life and my work. I have been an activist in this community since the 1980s and I have had a wonderful career and met many remarkable people and seen some amazing things. I have witnessed with joy the increasing freedoms and legal protections and growth of community that have occurred over the past 35 or so years— but  due to recent conversations with Jamison Green, Chelea Goodwin, and Lola Cola—who is in the room tonight—I asked  that my planned talk be moved to a workshop so that tonight I could talk about something more important  than myself.

I’ll introduce this topic by telling you about a Facebook post I read on the airplane on my way here to Atlanta. A woman, a stranger, scolded the man who wrote the post. She said to him, “This is San Diego. You need to speak English.” He asked her, “How do you say San Diego in English?” The result? A dumbfounded expression. This is important, and I will work my way back around to it.

What I am talking about tonight is the incredible rising tide of anti-trans rhetoric, violence, and legislation that is being directed at us. We are not strangers to violence and hate, but we have become the subject of a vast coordinated and well-planned attack from the far right. Since Rowe vs. Wade was disposed of by the U.S. Supreme Court, we have become, as my friend Sophie Lynne wrote in a recent article on the website TG Forum, the new bogeymen.

Those positioning themselves as our enemies are evangelistic Christians, white nationalists, a political party I will not mention, and a small group of women known as trans-exclusionary lesbian feminists. Sometimes they are even supported from within our own ranks. I’m looking at you, Caitlin Jenner! They are organized in ways we are not, and they are massively funded by billionaires and organizations including the Heritage Foundation, the Family Research Council, and the Alliance Defending Freedom. They lobby and influence local, state, and national congressmen and women and spread disinformation and misinformation about trans people to the American public.

Working in tandem, The American Legislative Exchange Council and the Congressional Prayer Caucus write anti-trans bills which they send to senators and congressmen in every state, who put them into play—and many become the law of the land.

In her essay, Sophie Lynne wrote “Anti- trans bills skyrocketed from 143 in 2021 (18 passed) to 600 (87 passed) in 2023. In 2024, there have already been 539 bills (20 passed) and we’re only one-third of the way through the year.”

These bills span a wide range: Here are examples of some of the more moderate state bills that have been brought forth, many of which have become law and more of which will soon be: requiring teachers to use the birth names of students who have transitioned and criminalizing them for any mention of homosexuality or transgender identity. Requiring trans students to use the bathroom and locker rooms of the gender they were assigned at birth—can you imagine how traumatic and damaging that would be to a transitioned boy or girl? Banning students from participating in sports as a member of their identified gender. Requiring teachers to inform on trans children to their parents. And again, these are the milder ones.

In Texas, parents who affirm their trans childrens’ gender are subject to investigation by child protective services. In Tennessee—this one is not due to law, but to a malevolent state attorney general—Vanderbilt University was coerced into turning over the medical records of the patients of their gender clinic. I went to graduate school at Vanderbilt in the 1980s and a decade before that was a patient of their gender clinic. I find myself wondering if my records are with the Tennessee state attorney general.

Bills in some states have banned changes of gender marker on identifying documents like birth certificates and driver’s licenses, and in Florida, I believe it is, those who have changed their markers will now have their documents voided and replaced by ones with their birth genders. In another state—I believe Texas—honestly, reports of these bills are coming in so fast I can’t keep up with them—the attorney general has suggested putting all trans people on the sex offender’s list. Also in Texas, the governor has stated his plans to prevent any transgender or nonbinary person from teaching in schools. And in some states, gender-affirming medical treatment—not only hormones are prohibited for those under eighteen, but medicines that delay puberty so families will have time to sort things out.

As a result of this hate and legislative malevolence, violence directed at us is on the rise.

It should be obvious to everyone here that we are in great danger of being criminalized merely because we exist. Around the country, at every level, local, state, and national, trans people are struggling and mobilizing to stand up to this tyranny. We each can and should do our part. That doesn’t necessarily mean outing yourself or engaging in direct action like lobbying your congressperson. If you’re not comfortable with such, your dollars will help. But above all, I beg you—whatever your political affiliation, VOTE. Please. VOTE.

Now, you might think this wraps up my talk, but we’re only at the halfway point. I will now attempt to briefly explain to you why this is a dangerous moment for the world and for America.

When I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, Americans got their news from trusted sources—primarily newspapers, magazines, and the evening news on the three existing channels:  ABC, NBC, and CBS. News was delivered by trusted commentators like Walter Kronkite and Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. Being journalists, they did their best to give America the news, and, being human, they sometimes skewed it a bit. But listeners had a common point of view from which to take exception and talk or argue about local, national, and international politics, fashion, and the weather.

Those days are long gone. Today there are channels leading to the left and others far, far to the right, and many people get their information solely or almost entirely from single sources that cannot in any reasonable fashion be called news. That of course increased the divide, But to make matters worse, since the mid 2010s there have been increasing sources of disinformation and misinformation. Countries like Russia, North Korea, China, and Saudi Arabia hire hundreds and thousands of English-speakers to twist facts or, more often, just make stuff up. They reach millions of Americans through fake but convincingly serious-looking websites and social media accounts. This makes it difficult and sometimes almost impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff, and as a result Americans, and especially gullible and low information Americans, have come to believe and build their private realities on things most bizarre: The earth is flat; the moon landing was faked by Stanley Kubrick. As an aside, I knew Kubrick’s cinematographer for the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey—Jack Malick, who, as Andrea Susan, was one of us. The moon landing was NOT faked. Jet contrails are a government plot to change the atmosphere or poison us. The Sandy Hook school shooting was staged and the bereaved parents are all paid actors. Democrats run a child pornography ring in the basement of a pizza restaurant that has no basement. Imagine the face of the MAGA shooter who showed up with his AR-15 and found that out. COVID vaccines are a government ploy to alter your DNA and allow the government to track you—as if they can’t already do that by pinging that cell phone in your hand. COVID itself, which killed more than one million Americans and left millions of others with long-term disabilities, is itself a hoax, Climate change is a hoax. 

People are absolutely convinced these things are true. They of course are not. They make absolutely no sense and are easily disproven by those who care to look at reliable sources, which most conspiracy theorists refuse to do. Instead, they find confirmation through social media accounts, some of which belong to fellow conspiracy theorists, and most of which are run by foreign trolls. They find a couple of disinformative articles on Google that justify their conclusions while failing to cite any actual data, and they call it doing research. That is absolutely NOT research. Research involves going to primary sources, and they’re too lazy to do that. Meanwhile, they scoff at and discredit scientists who are doing REAL research. And let me be clear.  Science is real. It is our most important tool. Without science, I would not have survived childhood, and neither would many of you. We would not be traveling to conferences like this in planes and cars, for there WOULD be no planes and cars. We would still be mired in illogical, superstitious beliefs that held humanity back for millennia.

To make matters worse, and soon to be far worse, now, suddenly, AI is upon is. We have already been told to believe what the bots are telling us and not our lying eyes and ears—now AI is being used to crank out disinformation in clever ways and create utterly believable images that DO trick our eyes and ears. I am forever seeing images on Facebook showing impossibly giant humans and female celebrities I know did nor pose in that swimsuit. They’re not real, but they LOOK convincingly real unless you count the fingers. But many people, I know, take it all in as fact.

This is the crux of our nation’s problem .

At this point half of the U.S. population believes Joe Biden, age 81, is too old to be President, and Donald Trump is not. Trump is three-and-a-half years younger than Biden and, should he win the November Presidential election, would be older than Biden is now at the end of his term. Half of the population believes Biden, who is extraordinarily mentally sharp and speaks in logically constructed sentences, is senile and Donald Trump, who shows clinical signs of senility and speaks in word salad, is sharp. I say this as someone with a license to practice psychology and who had a career as a psychometrist. Look at transcripts of Donald Trump’s speech. It wasn’t that way when he was younger. And compare it to transcripts of Joe Biden’s speech. Who is coherent?

I say this not to raise one Presidential candidate over another, but to point out that within a matter of weeks half of Americans came to believe Joe Biden is a decrepit, senile old man. Disinformation and misinformation. It’s devastatingly effective in the United States today.

As I conclude, I circle back, as promised, to the woman in San Diego. When her beliefs were challenged in a simple and direct way— “How do you say San Diego in English,”—what happened? Brain freeze.

In the mid-twentieth century, long before today’s sophisticated methods of mental manipulation came into play, a psychologist called Leon Festinger studied people with false fear-provoking ideas. He discovered that people with such beliefs were extraordinarily resistant to information that challenged their beliefs. They would in fact do considerable mental gymnastics to avoid even hearing data that was counter to their false beliefs. Festinger called this cognitive dissonance. And it perfectly describes the woman in San Diego.

This is why we’re in trouble. Half the population believes trans people are abusing children. Half believe we just want to invade bathrooms of the opposite sex. Half believe we are mentally ill, or sinners, or sexual deviants—and they will not be easily unconvinced.

However we identify—as crossdressers, as transsexuals, as transgender, as nonbinary—we must stand up for ourselves and our rights as Americans. And so I ask you again to, within the boundaries of your safety, do what you can to help being this country back into equilibrium. Contact politicians. Speak in public. Write letters to editors. And if you cannot do these direct things, consider working a phone bank, making calls that will not identify you, or mail postcards to voters. Provide financial support to organizations fighting for our freedoms—the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and new groups that are forming. And please, vote, vote, vote!

Thank you for your time and attention.

Last Decade

I know I write about the past often.  I'm still trying to understand who I am, and why, so looking at the past is one way that I do this.  For that reason, I don't often do "year in review" things.  However, this time it's a new decade.  2020 marks the 7th decade in which I've lived.

I was born in 1966.  I only have a few vague memories of the 60s.  I remember watching the moon landing.  I remember falling down the stairs when I was two (I remember the sensation of falling and thinking "whee! I'm flying!) and breaking my arm (I don't remember that part.)

I remember the 70s.  I remember a dream from when I was three: a huge blob of living lava burned through a barn (this barn really existed, and had a huge hole in the one side, so...) Also in that dream there were a parade of brachiosauruses on the horizon, moving left to right.  Most of my childhood was the 70s.  However, it was also the decade of Star Wars, which changed my life as it did so many others.  

I began the 80s in junior high school.  I ended them as a college graduate.  In most ways that count, the 80s is when I "grew up."  Burned all my girl clothes because "men don't play dress up."  I fell into deep depression, from which I still haven't recovered.  Until recently, it was the decade of greatest change in my life.

In the 90s, I met and married my Wife.  I moved to Baltimore to work for Games Workshop.  Bought my first (and only) house.

00s... A decade of Hell.  We moved back to Pa to live with Wife's mother (MIL.)  My drinking was out of control.  Earned Masters degree.  I was angry at everything, especially myself.  I wrote a book, hoping to figure out why.  Daughter was born in 07.  Then my True self reemerged in 08 after 25 years of suppression.  Oh, and I started this blog on Myspace.

At the dawn of 2010, I was a VERY closeted cross dresser who was very confused and depressed.

I didn't know how deeply my femme self went, and I fought it as hard as I could.  In 2012, I finally stopped lying to my wife three and a half years after my "re-emergence" and told her all about Sophie. 

Also in 2012, I met a person who would affect my life profoundly: Lisa Empanada.  She was a friend and mentor, but more- she understood the Darkness in my soul, as she had it as well.

August 2012.  I was arrested for drunk driving.  I finally got help for my drinking.  I paid the price for my stupidity.

In December 2012, I decided, with Wife's consent, to start HRT.  I wasn't sure about transitioning, but heard that a low dose of estrogen helped with dysphoria.  It did.

Events escalated quickly.  I began getting more freelance work as an Instructional designer, so I was able to start paying off debts.  I also worked part time at Penn State Great Valley.  Then, in late summer of 2013,  MIL discovered I was transgender, and gave me 48 hours to move out.  Wife told me she was not coming with me, which crushed me.  I moved out on August 30, 2013. 

With Lisa at SCC

A week after I travelled to the Southern Comfort Conference (SCC), where I was "pinned in" as a sister of Vanity Club.  While there, I met someone who I didn't know would be a central figure of my life: Linda Lewis.  Lisa arrived the last day of the conference, which surprised me.  I didn't realize that this would be the last time we would ever speak. 

My birthday was September 13.  Four days later, on September 17, 2013, I was told that Lisa died of suicide.  After being thrown out, other issues, then her death, I tail-spinned into the Darkness.  I really don't know how I survived that month, and the next few. 

In late December 2013, Linda Lewis arrived from Michigan on her way to Florida.  Things fell apart while she was staying at the house where a dear friend graciously let me stay, and she stayed in Pa. 

March 2014.  I finally started living my Truth.  Lost 90% of my friends, and Instructional design calls stopped.

June 2014.  Linda and I found an apartment together, soon to be joined by Zoey, without whom we would've been homeless. 

June 2015, Linda and I moved to Phoenixville (Zoey previously moved back to Iowa) where I was closer to Wife and daughter. 

Cast of Dracula, 2019

November 2016.  The election puts a maniac in charge of our country.  Hate crimes against minorities, including transgender people, rise dramatically.  The end of the American experiment is a real possibility.

February 2017.  I made my stage debut as Sophie in the Vagina Monologues.  Sold out show. 

February 2018.  I lost my book store job after 14 years.  I was unemployed, except for odd jobs and Lyft, for over a year.  I felt absolutely worthless.

May 2018.  I travelled to the UK to reconnect with family and myself. 

January 2019.  I played a Maid in a local production of Dracula.  Sold out run. 

June 2019.  I played the courtesan Tintinabula in a local production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.  It will be my last play for a long time, as I have no time while studying.

August 2019: Linda and I moved to Penn State so I could begin my PhD studies in Adult and Continuing Education, after being accepted in March.

Linda and I in State College, 2019

Now it's January 2020.  I'm in my apartment in State College.  The new semester starts in a week.  How would I summarize the last decade?

Pain. 

Worst decade of my life. 

So many losses.  So much Pain.  Combined with deaths, and the uncertainty of who I really was, the Darkness was (and still is) still waiting to claim me as it did Lisa.  I am far from the same person who started the decade- in fact it was a whole different life.  Seems so distant, but it wasn't that long ago.   I started the decade as a "guy" in deep Pain, 

At the dawn of a New Decade, I feel useful.  I finished my first semester of doctoral study with a 3.97.  I work as a graduate assistant for the University.  Linda is also working.  I've made some new friends, and I'm mentoring an undergraduate transgender woman (still taking her earliest steps,) but for the most part keep to myself.  The colossal amount of homework precludes a social life. 

I'm living now as I have been for the past several years: day by day.  I don't make plans.  I do what I need to do.  People come and go.  Now in State College, I'll fade from more people's lives.  That's the way of things.

Cast of Forum

I still have no Hope.  45 is still in the White House, and it seems like weekly I lose more rights simply because I was born transgender.  Money is still a struggle, so surgeries are out of the question. 

Yet, I'm doing something here that may help others.  If I can help one transgender person have an easier time in transitioning, and/or survive, then this will all be worth it.  Nice to have purpose again.

So, this new decade brings so many challenges.  May it bring all of you happiness.

Be well.

Bye Big Sister

The older one gets, the more used to "goodbyes" they become.

I'm only 52, and I've lost so many friends for so many reasons.  Most due to transition (yeah, I know- "not really friends" and all that); some to distance; others still because we no longer work together and our circles just no longer intersect.  I've lost far too many to Death already.  Seems to be a curse: friends of mine die young.  Maybe that's one of the reasons I never had many friends.

In any case, I've often written about my "Big Sister" Mel.  From Codex Sophie:  Mel transitioned in 2003.  She is an incredibly intelligent woman, and very plain spoken.  My therapist asked Mel to advise and mentor me, and we've become good friends.  I wouldn't be where I am today with out her candid, sometimes brutal, advice.  Mel is very good friends with Donna Rose, who was HER big sister.

I met Mel in 2009, at Angela's Laptop Lounge.  She came specifically to meet me, she said.  She didn't do many transgender events anymore, as she was pretty much stealth.  That said, she loved Southern Comfort Conference, where she saw many friends (she and I roomed together at my only SCC in 2013.)

Dr. Osborne asked her to advise me since, when Mel transitioned, she had two young children.  When I started seeing Dr. Osborne, my daughter was just over a year old.  Aside from Laptop, I would see Mel once a month or so.  We'd go to lunch or happy hour.

She taught me many important lessons.  The most important was "Transition should be the last resort.  Don't transition unless you have no other choice."  She was absolutely right.  When I decided to transition, it was a decision literally between Transition vs Blow my head off.  (I've written about this a few times.)

Our relationship started as a "mentor-student" thing.  Eventually, it evolved to a solid friendship.  She is one of the most intelligent people I know (she predicted the crash of 2008 years before it happened, and exactly how it would happen.)  She worked on Wall Street in the early 80s, and does she ever have stories!  I keep telling her she should write a book, but she modestly demurs.  Aside from finance, she is a scholar of religious history.  Oh, and, like me, she's a MAJOR Bob Dylan fan.

She and I don't always see eye-to-eye.  Her politics are moderate/right (Rockefeller Republican), but she quit the party years ago, and hates what the party has become.  She's not shy when it comes to telling me when I screw up, yet she's always there to help me sort things out as well.

The day I was thrown out of MIL's house, I called both my therapist and Mel.  I went over to Mel's apartment, where we talked and I cried and cried.  God, that was a horrible day!

There was a bright spot: while I was walking from the car to Mel's door, I received an email telling me that I'd been accepted into Vanity Club.  On any other day, I would've been ecstatic.  But not that day.

On December 10, 2012, I was serving my license suspension.  Mel drove me to the Mazzoni Center, where I received my first prescription for HRT: Hormone Replacement Therapy.

She's been a rock on which I could depend.

Now, she's moving home.

Her elderly mother is ailing, and needs help, so Mel is moving back to her hometown in upper New York State.

We'll still talk, of course.  And text.  But there's nothing like face to face, and that will be VERY rare for a while, if not for good.

Heading out to see Mel last Monday.

Last Monday, we got together one last time at McKenzies.  (We used to go to Shangrila, but it closed.  She loved the sushi there.)  We had a drink or two, had some appetizers, talked a bit like we always did, and then parted.  I took a picture of the two of us, but I won't post it.  She's very strict about that- no pictures.  We hugged, and, when we were getting into our respective cars, I turned and thanked her for everything she's done for me.

She knows how I think of her.  I just wanted to say it publically as well.

Be well, Mel.  You're one of the main reasons that I'm alive to write this today.