SOMETHING DIFFERENT

Posted on by
4

Typically this column consists of about 1000 words on topics I think are important or interesting. This week that’s not going to be the case. I was asked by Zena Denise Crenshaw, if I’d be willing to be interviewed about jury selection on a radio show called Crimes of the Century Radio By Black Talk Media Project which is part of Black Talk Radio Network.

Although I’ve haven’t done jury selections during the past two years, Zena (who is the program’s primary host) believed I’d have something to contribute to their series so I agreed. The show aired Thursday, November 22nd and was called The Tricky Business of Selecting and Winning over Juries.

The interview can be heard this week as a podcast at: http://crimesofthecenturyradio.blogspot.com/ on the right hand side of the page. The media player on that page gives a running time so if you want to stop then return to the program you’ll be able to pick up where you left off—if you feel like continuing to listen.

If you can’t get to it this week the interview will still be able to be heard at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/crimes-of-the-century-radio/id741166176 and dated 11/22/13. This site also gives you the option of using Itunes which also has a running time indicator.

Despite too many “uhhs” and “ahhs,” I managed to stay pretty coherent. So, if you do tune in, thanks for your time.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 10

Posted on by
3

I never jumped on the Breaking Bad bandwagon when it first turned up on television. After the first season was released on DVD, however, Sue borrowed it from a friend but said it made her too tense to watch. Since I still hadn’t gotten into it, I was fine about her returning the set.

Then the series began coming to its conclusion and it seemed as if the only interviews on radio and TV were of the cast, director, and creator. Even Charlie Rose did his annoying gushing about the program, but what caught my attention was the focus creator/writer/producer Vince Gilligan received. Sure, there was an avalanche of accolades heaped on Bryan Cranston, who played Walter White the main character, Anna Gunn, Water’s wife Skyler, and Aaron Paul as his youthful sidekick Jessie Pinkman, but the amount of consideration given to Gilligan surprised me. Few people in his position garner the raves he received as the show’s end drew near. He was the creative force and wrote many of the scripts (and oversaw the others) like David Chase of The Sopranos.

About the same time my son Jake gave me Apple TV as a present and I decided to spring for  Netflix Streaming and give Breaking Bad another shot. Well, I’m very glad I did. It is a damn good series with exceptional acting and writing, though I don’t believe it in any way, shape, or form surpasses The Sopranos or even the best years of The Wire. Still, it’s certainly a “contendah.” In an age where you have 180 channels and still find nothing to watch, that’s an impressive do.

But I’m not writing this column to compare television series, or even to analyze Breaking Bad as a whole. I’m writing about Season 3, Episode 10 called Fly. I don’t know if Fly more closely resembles a short story or a one act play, but I do know it was 47 minutes that could easily stand alone outside the series.

The plot revolved around catching or killing a fly that threatened to contaminate Walter’s meth lab. As a play (which is how I think of the episode) the actual plot had very little importance. It was just a vehicle to shine a light on the mostly contentious relationship between Walter, the older mentor, and Jessie his much younger, often sleazy, partner and mentee.

In an act of desperation, but mostly kindness, Jessie slipped some drugs into Walter’s coffee hoping to make him sleep after Walt’s continuous 24 hour obsessive hunt for that fly. But what the drugs actually did was allow Walter to talk about who he’d been, what he had become, and why. He talked about the importance “family” in his life and how it dictated many of his choices, despite a bushel full of regrets. And within the course of his confessions and conversation, his underlying affection for his mentee became increasingly clear.

Although Jessie didn’t verbalize his emotional reactions to Walter’s intimacy, his behavior (risking his neck to kill the fly, despite believing the entire effort completely idiotic) indicated his real concern for Walt, despite their relentless arguments and on and off again partnership. As the frantic fly hunt continues, layers of top skin are stripped from both participants. Although Walt and Jessie’s relationship has a much more complicated history, in many ways this episode reminded me of Mamet’s Duck Variations. In that play, two strangers sit on a bench and these old men start making assumptions about the ducks swimming nearby. Even though they know nothing about ducks or each other, their comments reveal more and more about who each of them are and an intimate connection develops before they go their separate ways.

And, of course, by the conclusion of Season 3, Episode 10, the fly has been killed, Walter has slept off the pills and, as they get into their cars, their tenderness has receded into the typical antagonisms.

Just a great 47 minutes and well worth trying to find whether you’re interested in the show as a whole or not. It’s not often an ongoing series produces a one act play as in depth as this episode.

Flipping through other channels:

Homeland, which I’ve written about before, has regained its footing this season. The acting has been strong (Claire Danes isn’t always crying or about to) but what has really been fun are the plot twists. Back in the day, I read a lot of spy novels, mostly favoring the intricate betrayals John Le Carrie wove through his early books. (I still believe both the novel and the movie of The Spy Who Came In From The Cold are classics.) This season’s plotting of Homeland is very reminiscent of those early works. Folks who have cable television and On Demand might want to consider watching this season from the start.

And, of course, it was baseball’s play-offs, which meant hours upon hours glued to the set. Given the outcome, all those late nights and tired days were more than worth it. The Red Sox won! The Red Sox won!

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. C.G. Jung

NAKED IN HOOSIERLAND

Posted on by
15

by Kent Ballard

You wouldn’t think it to look at him, but our esteemed blogger Zach is actually a pretty bright fellow. Recently he gave me an idea that’s worth pondering and perhaps implementing. I was complaining about all the tourists who come to my county for two weeks out of the year to see the brilliant fall foliage and to attend the county-wide festivals each little burg has during this time. If you are a local, if you actually live where people visit, you soon learn that all tourists are major pains in the ass and most consist of folks whom even Wal-Mart wouldn’t allow in their doors.

I was complaining about this at some length with Zach and he more or less said, “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”

I do not have a machine which makes cotton candy. I don’t sell deep fried watermelon on a stick. I don’t have suppliers who sell me eight hundred pounds of cheap, worthless socks made by slave labor in Somolia or genuine Americana “antiques” which were made last summer in China. These are pretty much what all the booths and yard sales in our festival sell and I want no part of it.

Zach said to simply charge the rubes a few bucks to swim in my pond. I have 71 acres of forest in which I live and two ponds, one rather large. I dismissed his idea originally, but thought about it later…

The last time I checked, the state of Indiana had more nudist colonies per capita than any other state in the union. Nobody seems to know why, but we do. Why just charge people to swim? Why not put up a couple of dozen cheap cabins, throw up an eight foot wooden fence around my acreage, hire some security, and start my own nudist camp?

The initial cost of starting up such a colony would be pretty high, but have you ever checked what they charge families for two weeks to a month to relax in the nude at a skin camp? It’s appalling. A king’s ransom. But people line up to cheerfully pay every year. Established nudist resorts rake in more money than Vegas. Money interests me.

Let’s see…I already have the land. My home is so remote there is a plaque along my half-mile long driveway commemorating this as the place where dark was invented. It’s nothing but deep valleys, high ridges, ravines, and I think if you could flatten it all out it would equal Vermont in size. It’s mostly hardwood forest and, I think, rather pretty country. We have deer, many of them. We have huge barred owls that call to each other at night. We have coyotes who form choirs to serenade folks in the wee hours, driving every pet dog into howling fits for miles around. Off and on, we have bigfoot though I might want to leave that off the advertisements.

I’d need a tall wooden fence around the entire property, and probably a very wicked inner fence of razor wire to keep out the curious riff-raff. And I would need a few roving perimeter guards. I would hire the bigfoot, as they would be champs at this, but they’re not trustworthy when it comes to punching a time clock. So, instead, I would hire rural women to be the guards at my colony. I know many country women who could score “expert sniper” on any military gun range and most of them are quite attractive.

They also take no crap from anybody. Yes, rural women would be perfect perimeter guards.

I could buy a score or two of those prefabricated tiny houses or largish yard tool barns and convert them into rustic cabins lit by kerosene lamps. A few porta-potties scattered about would take care of those needs, and I could put small wash basins in the cabins. I’d have to build a shower house, but there would be no need to build a laundry. Those who wished to could bring their own camping gear and enjoy all this beautiful scenery and nakedness outdoors if they chose to.

We’d have nightly cookouts, card games, bingo, swimming contests, all the usual campground activities. I’d buy a few yards of cheap ribbon and hammer out some large medals for the Ms. & Mr. Nudist Camp contestants every month. It’d cost a ton to get everything set up, time before word got around to the nudists themselves (which means advertising), but once that was done and the colony established, I would be filthy, stinking rich.

I’d drive a custom-made Jeep. I’d hire people to cut my winter’s firewood. Hell, I could afford a new tractor! (Don’t scoff. The big ones run close to a quarter-million dollars. Google them if you think I’m kidding.) Best of all, I could make lots of nice, new, naked friends.

In rural Indiana the most savage enemies I would have would be the fine church-going people. They would protest. They would organize. They’d picket my front gate. I’m nowhere near a school or other public facility and I suppose a lengthy court battle might beat them, but I have friends in low places and it would be both cheaper and faster to identify the church ringleaders and grease a few of their palms. Failing that, a little detective work to get photos of everybody who’s screwing everybody else in their congregations would calm them down pronto.

So I’m now doing cost-study analyses and pricing lumber. Also checking on the cost of Viagra by the case. If I went full-tilt boogie and invested everything I have (and what I could borrow), I could pull this off. The critical point would happen when I bring this plan up with my lovely wife. Foolishly, I taught her how to shoot years ago and she’s quite good at it. As a rule she’s kind-hearted and gentle, but I cannot outrun a hail of 9 millimeter bullets so this would take great planning and preparation. She’s interested in money too, and that would help.

So…someday when you are perusing your favorite porn site, should you find an advertisement for Indiana’s newest nudist colony, contact me at the provided web address and I’ll send you brochures, maps, rates, and everything you need to know. Then plan your summer vacation here. And pack very lightly.

I may even treat you to shameful, horrible stories about Zach while grilling hamburgers, some of which would even be true. But for so kindly giving me the idea of how to become a rustic, backwoods Hugh Hefner or Larry Flynt, I’ll alter the names and dates which should give him a chance at explaining all this to his beloved Sue. If that doesn’t work I’ll send her a season pass.

You will have the vacation of a lifetime. You’ll broaden your horizons and eventually relax and embrace a tolerance of alterative lifestyles. Besides, it simply feels good to run around naked. Life is too short for Puritan prudishness. Try it and you will be surprised at how quickly you take to this refreshing and wholesome (by Indiana standards) lifestyle. You’ll get a killer tan too.

But we ask you. Please….no peeing in the pond.

You can’t get a suit of armor and a rubber chicken just like that. You have to plan ahead. Michael Palin

 

DEAR HANK

Posted on by
16

Dear Hank,

You and I don’t believe in heaven or hell but we do both believe in wind. Which makes it sadly ironic that you would pass for the lack. Still, while I don’t give much credence to mysticism or even spiritualism, I truly hear you rustling around. I feel you swirling around me and expect you always will. I might not have all the time sequences accurate, but the following experiences are true to the bone.

During the last year of your life we spent a fair amount of time talking about what we had brought to the world. You always concluded, “At least I was able to give pleasure to people through my music.”  That was money, but just the beginning of a whole lot more.

You were incredibly important to my life—though it didn’t start that way. You were about ten years older when I hung around Roselle Park with your brothers, so I was just the little cousin. Occasionally you’d have one of your friends punch me in the stomach to prove how good I could take it. Of course you and your brothers, Frank and Jeff, never remember that happening. Hell, why should they or you? I was the one getting hit and struggling with every bit of energy not to fall and let you (or myself) down.

Just a couple of years later I was holding you in awe. You were a musician, a saxophone player, the only real artist in the family. You honked with a band AND eloped with a Christian, Barbara, the band’s singer. A definite first for our family, met with slings and arrows. I thought it an act of bravery, a serious sacrifice for love, much the same as I viewed your work as a musician. When the group (I think it was The Escorts at the time) was scheduled to play on the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Telethon, and they kept pushing the group back later and later, I remember begging my mother to let me stay up to watch. Finally, when you came on the wavy black and white, Barbara sang the first song and then you sang the next. I think that shocked everyone because no one knew you could sing—but you sounded fine. Even through those tinny TV speakers.

My recollections of your life during my preteen years are sketchy, but I did know you never stopped blowing your horn. Night after night, year after year. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, this was a significant lesson about what it took to become really good at something.

And I knew you were good. When you played in New York, you’d tell your brothers and me you’d get us into the bar and we’d be okay. The place was rowdy, but even from the bandstand you kept an eye on us to make sure we weren’t hassled. More than that, I remember how you sounded with Barbara’s singing. I didn’t know anything about music then, but I knew I was listening to something special. Your fingers were a blur and the richness of your saxophone was nothing I’d heard on any records. Barbara’s throaty voice was the perfect offset to your style. There was a song called Sorrento I’d never heard before going to The Wagon Wheel, but when you played your long, lightning fast solo I’d jump and cheer. You must have noticed; every time I saw the band you made a point of playing that number.

You had become my role model. Someone willing to go against family conventions, took on a world where a living was dicey at best, but one that you loved and willingly entered head on. There’s no way I would have, could have, made the life choices I did, had you not led the way.

We lost track of each other after I went to college, but I knew you had moved to Florida and were still playing night after night. Eventually I realized I too wanted to get into the arts. I hadn’t yet realized I was a writer, so I did what seemed natural. I wrote you a letter and asked, if I gave you the money, could you choose and send me a decent sax. Instead, you sent me one of your altos with a note saying you weren’t playing it anymore. Looking back, I imagine you chuckled at my request. You knew I hadn’t the slightest idea of what a decent saxophone cost, which is why you gave me your Buescher with its New York Meyer mouthpiece.

Well, life had other plans that took me into counseling for decades. But throughout all those years the sax was left out in plain sight. The next time the arts called loud enough, I was drawn to writing, which took another dozen years of my time. Then, during my next job as a trial and jury consultant, the Buescher kept whispering its siren song, soft and low.

By that time you had moved back to New Jersey, diagnosed with COPD, and was slowly on your way to emphysema. I called and asked if I was crazy to even think about starting to learn music at 50 years old. “Keep your day job but go for it,” you answered. “It’s never too late to learn something that interests you.”

We kept in touch and after about a year of lessons, my terrific teacher suggested I join his teaching ensemble, though he warned me I’d be its worst player. Still, he felt it would add to my music education. So I called you again and asked if you thought it a good idea. You laughed and said, “Playing with other people is different than playing in your room or with your teacher. And playing with better musicians is the best way to get better yourself. Just be prepared to be humiliated. You’re strong enough to take a punch.”

Years later, at a family occasion, I mentioned I’d bought a tenor. You told me sit tight, drove to your nearby home, and returned with the mouthpiece you’d gotten from your friend King Curtis. You told me it was the last of your musical instruments and you had confidence I’d do it justice. I’m not sure you’re right about the justice thing though I treasured that mouthpiece, but sadly realized you were saying an official farewell to music.

Then the emphysema started to really hit and you moved in with your daughter Cheryl, her husband Eddie, and Emily, your granddaughter. Our irregular contact stepped up into regular. We spoke on the phone, sometimes about music, but mostly about baseball. You were a rabid Yankee fan and my team was the Sox. We bought MLB.com so we could watch each other’s game. When they played each other we’d talk between innings, and when talking took too much out of you we’d text. We both got pretty good pushing those tiny damn buttons.

At some point I realized that I hadn’t actually seen you in forever. At first you objected to my driving to Forked River. I think you were concerned about how much weight you’d already lost, though you’d always been a skinny son-of-a- bitch with a metabolism I’da killed for. We worked it out and this visit started another part of our relationship. I still remember Cher and Emily peeking into your room while we laid on your bed watching one baseball game on the TV and another on the laptop. I supposed we did look a little strange.

Then a week happened that, for the rest of my life, will always bring a smile. Cheryl wanted a family vacation and needed people to cover. Brother Jeff and his wife Michelle did the first weekend, then I came down to hang. As usual you bitched and moaned but we had a terrific time. You turned me onto Jimmy Dean breakfasts, though like idiots we microwaved ’em in their plastic package. (This after I’d fought the vinyl chloride industry for ten years).

In fact, that week we caught a lucky break. Your emphysema really backed off so we were able to go to your breakfast joint a couple of times instead of the microwave. You told me that sometimes you’d start to feel well enough to go there late in the morning, but knew they were closing in about 30 minutes so you didn’t. “Why make ’em stay past their working hours?” Well, however limited your visits had become, when we walked in the door those two mornings, everyone would call out their greetings and never asked for your order. They knew.

We were also able to go out to lunch at another favorite place where brother Frank from New York joined us for hours of talk. You were even strong enough to drive and hang at the car dealership where you’d been the customer rep since the COPD stole your music. And goddamn, if everyone from the owner on down didn’t stop by the room where we were hanging. Dave, the repair manager, regaled me with stories of the hijinks you and he played. I laughed my eyes out and you your breath, until we finally went home.

During my last visit you weren’t as strong, but even then but even then the wind whistled and baseball was on the tube every day. Brother Jeff visited and the two of you schooled me on auto racing. I’ll never be a rabid fan, but I no longer think it’s just a fast left hand turn.

What I really want you to know is it’s true that you gave people enormous pleasure with your music—but you gave even more than that. You gave those connected to you a loving, warm embrace. And there were a lot of people connected to you. You really cared.

And you gave me permission to have an artistic life.

I know how much you loved your family and I’m proud to have been a member as well as a friend. I know how much you loved Cheryl, Eddie and Emily and how much they loved you back. And I know how much the rest of the family and your friends loved you, respected you.

If we were both wrong and there is a heaven and hell, I know you’re making great music with the best of the best. And when I get there I’ll be in the audience shouting, “Sorrento, Sorrento!”

Dare to be strong and courageous. That is the road. Venture anything. Sherwood Anderson

PLEASE DIG DEEPER: AN INTERVIEW WITH ALLISON WOOLBERT

Posted on by
11

Allison

Allison Woolbert is the initiator of the Transgender Violence Tracking Project which I wrote about in last week’s column. For even more details about the project please visit: http://www.transviolencetracker.com/. Although she will never receive a dime for her efforts, Allison has tirelessly worked to inform people about the transgender community and getting this incredibly important project off the ground. She was kind enough to spend another couple of hours with me on the phone for this interview.

Q. Have you received any responses from last week’s column?

Allison: Well, the article spread to many different websites and I received a number of supportive comments on the TVTP‘s Facebook page. Shockingly, I also received numerous requests for pictures of mutilated bodies and immolation victims. It had never crossed my mind that there were people who actually had a fetish for viewing dead members of our transgender community. I also received a personal threat on my life which scared the hell out of me. I banned the picture request people and FB did remove the member who sent the death threat.

Q. During our last conversation you mentioned that a transgender person is murdered about every three days.

Allison: That’s from information that we receive and really only includes reported murders. We actually think the rate is higher. This is why the TVTP is so important. We need accurate factual data in order to get basic protection.

Q. Was this your first encounter with threats?

Allison: I’ve been out now for five years and when I first came out as an affirmed woman I always felt frightened and did have a couple of threatening incidents. I remember one where a group of people in a car tried to run me into a “Jersey barrier” on the side of the highway. Still, this recent murder threat just so people might see my dead body really shook me up—despite all my knowledge about the hatred toward transgender people.

Q. No longer just statistics, huh?

Allison: Right, though there have been a number of murders and suicides that have blown me away. A boy in England, who was not allowed to wear make-up to school to be who she really was despite trying a number of times, finally hanged herself on the same day as my son’s birthday who was also the same exact age. It’s a suicide I’ll never forget. Another boy went to school in the US wearing lipstick and a fellow student just shot him to death. This is another reason why TVTP is so important. We need to know the facts about how many of our children are being murdered and beaten.

Q. You’ve been talking about kids. At what age did you first have an inkling about the war within yourself?

Allison: I remember when I was seven, waking up at night and going to my window and praying, “Please god, please god turn me into who I really am. My family were extremely devout Christians and I believed in miracles so I kept praying and waiting.

Q. Even at the age of seven you knew you were a girl.

Allison: What had solidified by then was that something was wrong. That I didn’t belong in this boy’s body. It really wasn’t me.

Q. You told me a story about putting on a dress and make-up, proudly showing your folks and your mom went ballistic.

Allison: She dragged me back into the bathroom, tore the clothes off and really hurt my face scrubbing the make-up away. It was pretty painful physically and psychologically.

Q. This was at age seven?

Allison: Actually earlier. Maybe five or six. I was always seeking my womanhood. I used to steal my grandmother’s girdle, take clothes from clotheslines, hide my sister’s dress and wig under my mattress. I couldn’t put any reasons to these things; I had to do it even though I felt horrible and guilty.

By the time I was around ten, I kind of accepted my behavior. I had women’s clothes in my tree fort, under my mattress, any place where I could hide them.

Q. Of course all this had to be secret.

Allison: Absolutely! I had to stay hidden in the closet or face violent reactions from my family. There was no choice. In my family, this was evil. Also, remember, at that time there was no language to explain what was happening with me. Transexual wasn’t a word most people even knew—much less understood as a medical issue. What I was, was simply wrong. In those days I was perceived as a gay effeminate boy and gay was a sin. I didn’t even know what I was because I knew I wasn’t gay since I was attracted to girls—though in fact—it turns out that I’m bisexual.

But back then, if I wore women’s clothes I experienced a feeling of normalcy and actually relaxed. Then when I took them off it was “Oh my god, I’ve sinned.” In some ways it was a self-perpetuating punishment.

Q. Elementary school must have been tough.

Allison: Oh yes. I had ADHD, plus I was effeminate. I was regularly paddled in the principal’s office or in front of my class. You see, I grew up in a copper mining community that had very concrete gender roles. Women could be secretaries but never work in the mine. So you can imagine how I was seen.

Q.  I’d guess things grew even worse as you moved through junior high and high school.

Allison: Yes, they did. I can’t put an exact time frame on it anymore, but I remember being stuffed into lockers—no small thing since I was already at least six feet tall. I was pushed, shoved, and beaten up. During high school there was one kid who basically smacked me around every day. Throwing basketballs at the back of my head or breaking my glasses. Essentially I was seen as gay. But I couldn’t fight back because my family kept preaching that fighting was evil and a sin.

Q. You’ve taught me the difference between “sexual orientation” and being a transgender person so you were attracted to girls/women.

Allison: Sure, sure. I’m bisexual so I’ve been attracted to both men and women my whole life. For me there’s no disparity between my sexual attractions and my sexual identity.

Q. During all of those school years was there anyone you could talk to about all this?

Allison: About my sexual identity? Not a single one. I was over twenty before I had that discussion. See, I was caught in a corner. I didn’t know what I was. Gay? Straight, but effeminate? In my own mind I just thought I was a freak.

My mother was unrelenting, overbearing and continually insisted the cure for me was to attend a strict Christian college to be “saved.” During second semester I met a woman and married her ten days later, dropped out of school, and a year later had a child. But when I first got married I began to cross-dress in the house. She thought it was kinda kinky and willing to have fun with it. Of course, at that point in my life I never went outside in women’s clothes or makeup. It was sex play, which was very different than my real issue.

Despite her semi-acceptance of my cross-dressing and our having a child, the marriage was a disaster. I spent a year being unable to keep a job and scrambled from one to another adding to the misery.

Q. Was that when you enlisted?

Allison: Yes, I went into the Air Force. Someone suggested it was a way to at least have a solid job.

Q. You were how old?

Allison: I was 19 ½. I’d just had my little boy. Actually, the military was okay for me. It enabled me to get my feet on the ground and find my way out of adolescence. I thought I’d be traveling, but after training I ended up back home in Tucson for my entire tour of duty.

Q. And it was the Air Force that initiated your computer expertise?

Allison: Yes, but it wasn’t what I wanted at the time. I really wanted a woman’s job. I aspired to be a secretary—though I knew the male twist would mean becoming a clerk. I took a typing test but they told me they were going to make me a statistical analyst and computer programmer—despite my incredible struggles with both algebra and geometry. But during the four years I was in the Air Force I worked hard at it, learned to love it, and that’s how my career evolved to where I’ve become quite good at all things computer. Otherwise I’d never initiate the TVTP. My transgender community means too much to me.

Q. Four years, huh? You’ve described yourself as effeminate. How did you deal with that in the military?

Allison: With mixed emotions. On one hand I was married with a small child and trying to suppress my real identity. Also, the Air Force demands specific postures for standing, sitting, everything really. So it actually helped in presenting as male. At the same time it was extraordinarily painful to keep who I really was in check. I just wasn’t who I was trying so hard to be. You can’t see gender identity but you can see gender expression. How you stand, haircuts, hold your hands. Most of the bias comes as a reaction to expression. For example, a masculine butch woman catches bias because of her gender expression.

Q. What happened after you left the military?

Allison: By the time I left I knew I wanted to devote my life to computer programming and analysis and got supervisory work as such. But after 6½ years my first marriage ended in a divorce. I then remarried and that marriage lasted for 6 years as well, though for half that time we were separated.

In the beginning of the marriage I began thinking about actually transitioning and before the separation my wife actually urged me to go public with my cross-dressing. But after our separation I stopped, buried who I really was, and started dating yet again. I still had my mother’s voice in my head telling me I’d meet a religious Christian woman and become “normal.”

Then I met a good woman who seemed to believe in me. Plus I was older and had better repression tools, telling myself I don’t have to be what I really was. I loved her and during our thirteen years together had two children. When I again began to accept my transsexuality, she thought it was simply a phase and told me to get over it and keep the money coming. I think she believed my transexualism was something I was using to escape the kids. Nothing was farther from the truth. Despite ongoing problems with some of my children, I love them all dearly.

Q. At the point of this break-up, where were you at gender identity-wise?

Allison: At that time I’d really begun transitioning, using black market hormones, even though I was still resisting. I had two psychologists who finally identified that I had PTSD from my upbringing and marriages, that I was a transsexual, and if I didn’t deal with that I was going to die. Kill myself.

At forty five years of age I finally accepted my transsexuality despite having a tremendous amount of anxiety. I had fully transitioned by October 2008 and never turned back. Everything I knew, everyone I knew—including my two older children were gone. I was living fully as a woman though I never thought I could get my surgery because of the cost. Truthfully, there was limited relief at that point in time. For six months I worked through the trauma of living a new life. I did have a coming out party where I wore a beautiful purple gown and, for the first time, there were people celebrating who I was. But it was extremely difficult after living as I had. Terribly painful, despite the deep internal knowledge that I finally was who I was meant to be.

Q. So when did things begin to settle down?

Allison: Soon, I hope. (laughter)

Q. When did the surgery occur?

Allison: I discovered my insurance would cover the cost, but I had to pay upfront. So my friends did fundraising and I took out enough loans to be able to pay. I had my surgery in 2010.Truth is, it’s just been this last year that I’ve felt completely comfortable with who I am physiologically. It really does time for the body and mind’s neurotransmitters to align.

(At this point Allison and I talked about some of the fissures between the LGB community and the T. Rather than include it in this interview I’m posting her open letter, which has been published in a number of places, to her LGB sisters and brothers on my web site’s Happenings page—http://zacharykleinonline.com/happenings/

Q. So what do you perceive as the highest political priority for the transgender community?

Allison: Jobs and safety. If you don’t have a job, you can’t get health insurance, you end up on government assistance, and frequently become homeless. As a transgender person it’s difficult to get into a shelter, and often end up assaulted. Not a pretty picture.

We know that homeless people are assaulted more than others. Which means that transgender people are, as I’ve said before, disproportionally the victims of violence. But our knowing this does nothing for our protection, which is why the TVTP is so important. My community needs the power to present verified data in a way that doesn’t raise more violence upon us, but rather protects us. We can slow down the victimization that happens to our community with actual facts and data. Right now, that information is virtually impossible to get. The core of the TVTP is to create statistical evidence that can’t be disputed.

TVTP has the potential to deliver a number of things. One, to provide information to specific cities about specific violence perpetrated upon our community in those cities. Two, validate information as factual. This will give our community the opportunity to take this information and present it to the appropriate authorities—police, congress, and courts—as indisputable facts and not conjecture. And to finally force prosecutors to utilize the hate crime laws for the transgender community.

Q. Is there anything you’d like to add to what I’ve asked? No doubt I missed something.

Allison: We’re not even counted in the census. The choice is “male” or “female.” The government doesn’t want to change this because if we are counted we’ll have political legitimacy. Something very few politicians want. Let’s face it, how hard would it be to add a T to an M and an F?

This concluded the interview with my newly discovered friend. I want to thank her for the amazing willingness to open her life story. I also want to plead with people who read this interview to pledge anything you possibly can to the project. (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1280267427/transgender-murder-violence-and-suicide-website) Even a dollar will help. We have a very limited amount of time to make this happen.

What we have here is an invisible oppression that creates poverty, unemployment, suicides and incredibly brutal murders—to say nothing of the internal pain and trauma of a transgender person who, in the eyes of the government, doesn’t exist—despite the recognition of the medical and psychiatric community that this is a medical condition. We need less than $1,800 dollars to be pledged in the next 22 days or TVTP is dead in the water. Dig deeper my friends, please dig deeper.