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This Is Who I Am
Written by Nancy Guerin and Photos By Teri Currie Printed in August 15, 2002 "The Capital Region's Alternative Newsweekly - Metroland"
Family TRANSformation:
Written By Jane Gottlieb - Printed in Sunday November 8, 1998 "Albany Times Union"
Taking Pride In Who We Are:
Printed in May 97 "Capital District Gay and Lesbian Community Council Newsjournal called Community "
Coming Out Of The Shadows
Often subjected to ridicule, ostracism and discrimination, transgender people struggle for understanding and acceptance—and for the strong, unified public voice that will give their issues political clout
By Nancy Guerin
Photos By Teri Currie
Bridget and Debbie
On a blistering hot day in July, Bridget Nelson sits on the left-hand side of her living room couch with the remote control in one hand and a Misty light cigarette in the other. Even though she’s sitting, it’s easy to tell that she is a rather tall woman. Dressed casually in blue jeans and a white T-shirt, she has blonde shoulder-length hair and wears round wire-rimmed glasses. As she begins speaking, in her deep scratchy voice, about the changes that have taken place during the last 21 years of her marriage to Debra Nelson, it’s easy to tell that she chooses her words carefully. The living room is surrounded with family photos of the couple and their three boys. But only one picture reveals Bridget as the person she was formally known as prior to her 40th birthday in 1998.“We are about the furthest thing you will find from a conventional couple,” says Debra Nelson, as she throws her head back and chuckles. “Plus, I think we are the only legally wed same-sex couple in the state of New York.”
When the two were married on May 30, 1981, at a Methodist Church in Wichita Falls, Texas, they were not known as Debra and Bridget. In fact, at the time, the name Bridget did not mean anything to either of them. But 18 years into their lives together, Bridget made the decision to take the next step in her life as a transsexual by having sexual reassignment surgery.
“She is still the same person that I married,” says Debra, as she glances over at Bridget while touching her on her leg. “I didn’t marry her for sex. I married her because I love the person that she is no matter what the outside might be.”
Debra adds that unlike many couples whose partners come out about being transgender, this was not a shock to her. “We always had a very open marriage,” says Debra. “Very early on, Bridget would come home from work and put on a dress. At one point she started to take my birth control pills because of the hormones in them.”
Prior to the surgery in 1998, Bridget was known as Bernard Nelson. The oldest of five children growing up in Stillwater, she says that from an early age, she identified more as a woman than a man but suppressed those feelings for fear of retribution from society.
“For most of my life, I played into society’s role as a male,” says Bridget, “because anything else was frowned down upon. But I always felt different than others.”
In high school, Bridget played sports. Looking at the 6-foot-2 Nelson, it comes as no surprise that she was voted most valuable player of the basketball team, and also played baseball. After graduation she went off to college, married her first wife of six years (with whom she had two children), and joined the Air Force.
When she met Debra, she was stationed in Wichita Falls, Texas. They were married within three months. “We were always open with each other about who we were,” says Bridget. “Deb knew that I liked to cross-dress and that I was bisexual.”
Bridget Nelson spent 10 years in the service. During that time, she says, her desire to wear woman’s clothing increased and her ability to suppress who she really was became harder and harder. “At first I would just wear women’s panties under my uniform,” she says. “And then, for a long time I would go out late in the evenings so that my children or neighbors would not see me dressed as a woman.”
But eventually, the dual life of being Bernard by day and Bridget by night was starting to wear on her, and she became increasingly unhappy. “I had three choices,” says Bridget. “I could leave them (her family) and be who I am. I could stay as a man and remain unhappy. Or I could stay and come out and show them that what I was doing wasn’t wrong.”
“I would have been more upset if she continued to live life as a man when I knew she really needed to take this next step for her own happiness,” says Debra.
Working as a computer specialist for the New York state Department of Higher Education, Bridget was concerned for how her transition would go at work. Part of the process of transitioning from one gender to the other, prior to having sexual reassignment surgery, is to live fully for one year as the opposite sex. She says that although there were a few rough spots in the beginning—the biggest issue being which bathroom she was allowed to use—all in all, her transition went rather smoothly.
“I have no regrets about the decision that I made,” says Bridget. “I am not saying that surgery is the answer to everything for everyone, but for me it was the right thing to do. I felt complete in way that I had never felt before.”
If you are like many people, you probably don’t know exactly what it means to be transgender. And it also probably means that you don’t realize how many transgender people live in your community.
Moonhawk River Stone
According to MoonHawk River Stone, an Albany psychotherapist specializing in transgender issues, the word transgender is an umbrella term for a diverse group of people whose gender identity or expression does not conform to the cultural “norm” for the gender in which they were born. Therefore, they do not always identify with their birth gender.
Under this umbrella, there are many different categories of transgender people, and a variety of behavioral strategies as well as medical treatments that people engage in to seek relief. Some people may do very little to alter their situation. They may just know that they have a different gender identity than the one they were given at birth, but they don’t feel a need to do anything about it. They may cross-dress, wearing the clothing of the opposite gender and adopting some or many of the mannerisms of that gender for emotional and psychological satisfaction.
Some people who consider themselves transgender choose to do nothing medically to change themselves; these people are often referred to as no-ho, as in non-hormone.
Non-op, or non-operative, are those who may choose to alter their secondary sex characteristics through the use of hormones, and may cross-dress, but do not intend to change their primary sex characteristics through surgical procedures.
Transsexuals are those who feel a strong need to alter their bodies through hormones and surgery in order to feel congruent in their identity. The terms MTF and transwoman refer to a person who has physically transitioned from a male to female, like Bridget. FTM and transman refer to female-to-male transsexuals, like Stone, who completed his transition four years ago.
“A transsexual person truly feels that their anatomy doesn’t match their gender identity, so therefore they feel a compelling need to do something to change that,” says Stone. “But a transgender person might answer the question, ‘Am I a man or a woman?’ by stating, ‘Well, my anatomy is male, but I don’t identify as a male, but I also wouldn’t say that I am a female either. I like to live full-time as a woman; but I don’t want to change my anatomy even though I live full-time as a female.’ This is very hard for people to understand that kind of mixed identity.”
One of the biggest misunderstandings about transgender people, says Stone, is that this is about sexual orientation, which simply means whom you love or are attracted to. This is what most lesbian, gay, bisexual and straight people grapple with. But transgender has little to do with whom one sleeps or who one falls in love with, but rather one’s gender identity, which is one’s internal sense of being male or female. “A person’s gender identity and gender expression does have an impact on sexual orientation,” says Stone, “as one can observe that an integral part of attraction between potential partners is based upon one’s gender identity and gender expression.”
“People don’t understand that most trans people are heterosexual,” says Michael Smith, who takes hormone replacement therapy. “People don’t understand that this is not because we are gay and want to trick men into thinking we are women so we can get more men. For me, I really do not identify with being a man but I am attracted to women. I truly feel more like a woman, and most people have no idea what it is like to live this way.”
Stone says that most people never question who they are, so they have no clue what it is like to walk in the shoes of a transgender person. “It never occurred to them to think very seriously about the question, ‘Am I a man or a woman, boy or girl?,’ but if you are transgender, these questions start to enter your mind usually from a very early age. Our culture has developed this idea of what is right and what is normal, and everything else is not right, not normal, and weird, all the way up to very judgmental words people use like sick, perverted, freak and other pejoratives.”
Stone adds that people don’t understand the difference between choice and who you are, and that it’s a myth that people choose their gender identity.
“It’s the same mistake made early on in the lesbian-gay-bisexual movement, that people choose to be LGB,” says Hawk. “It’s a preference, it’s a choice, it’s a lifestyle, which are all not true. Those words are not only politically incorrect but they are also not accurate.”
It’s hard to say just how many transgender people are living in the Capital Region. Insiders suggest that the number ranges from 300 to 500. But one thing is clear: The transgender community is starting to find its voice, which is drawing more people out into the open. Strengthening that voice is the objective for many, so that transgender people can start to have an active role in creating legislation and changing the status quo here and across the country.
While more and more people are coming out, there are still many living in the shadows for fear of societal consequences, says Kaylie Lavedure, president of the Transgender Independence Club in Albany. This is why a number of support groups in the area are working to help people deal with the many issues that transgender people face once they become visible members of the community.
“Limited access to jobs, housing, health care; discrimination, being ostracized, being misunderstood, being made fun of, even beaten and raped is still a sad reality that many transgender people face by being visible,” says Lavedure. “You know when you are gay or lesbian and you come out, you can still hide it, at work, when you walk down the street, in a restaurant. But if you are trans and you don’t pass as male or female, people know it and people are not always very nice. It’s like you are a target.”
Lavedure says that although she does not experience much harassment where she lives, in Schenectady, she does remember that when she first started her transition from male to female, she was laughed at by one of her neighbors. This is why she says that groups like TGIC are so important for other transgender people who endure the same harassment each day.
TGIC has been in Albany since 1971. It is the only membership organization in the area for transgender people where enrolment remains confidential. The clubhouse, which is at an undisclosed location, is equipped with lockers for people who need a place to store gender-related apparel.
“Some of our members are secretive about being transgender,” says Lavedure. “Some have families at home, and this is the only place they can come and be who they really are and dress the way they feel most comfortable.”
The club holds weekly social gatherings where transgender people come to either hang out and be with others or partake in a variety of discussions about issues affecting the transgender community.
“Many people are not open about being transgender because they do not want to lose their family or children or don’t want to be ridiculed,” says Susan Poe, who edits the club’s monthly newsletter. “As it stands now, most people who come out do lose everything, including custody of their kids because society still looks down on transgender people. So many live a dual life of playing the part of the man or woman with their family and at work, but when they come to the club they are free to express who they really want to be. For others, they are able to talk about what life is like being transgender. I think this gives them strength. The problem is that unless more people are visible, this will never change.”
Charlene Dodge & Helen Farrell
Similarly, the Albany Gender Project, which Poe cofounded with Helen Farrell just last year, is also working to improve the conditions for transgender people in the area. Farrell said that the purpose of AGP is to promote and advocate educational services for transgender people, and the group deals with such issues as housing, legal aid and safety. The group holds bimonthly meetings where the members show videos, hold forums and bring in speakers to help educate people.
“We try to help connect people to whatever social services that they need and just let them know what is available,” says Farrell.
The group is currently working on opening a low-income emergency housing unit, which will have multiple apartments, an office with a hot line, and space for drop-in activities. Farrell says that when she first started her transition in 1986, there were very few support groups in place, and she suffered greatly as a result. That is why she was determined to start AGP.
“Even when I found out about different groups, I did not take advantage of the services that they provided,” Farrell says. “I walked around with suicidal tendencies, and although I had already had surgery, I was very closeted, would rarely go out and would walk around with my head down. But once I got connected with support, I felt safe, I had guidance, I developed a social circle. This helped me to be proud of who I am, and become a voice for transgender people.”
Rainbow Access Initiative is an organization that specifically works with the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community with health-care-related issues. The organization, which is funded by the New York State Department of Health, educates health-care providers about the unique needs of the LGBT community. Bobbi Williams, a board member for RAI, says that at this time there is very little information or research on the health-care needs of the transgender community. She adds that very few doctors are even aware of what it is to be transgender.
“The danger in this,” says Williams, “is that they (doctors) can miss important diagnoses because they do not know what to look for.”
For example, skin rashes can be caused by makeup, but if the doctor isn’t thinking of the patient as a transgender, he or she may give the wrong diagnosis. While this is a simple example of what can happen, Williams says, problems on a much greater scale can occur. If someone is taking hormones, and the doctor is not aware of it and prescribes other medication, it can have detrimental side effects.
“Many health plans do not cover hormone therapy, so many people are buying drugs off the Internet,” says Williams. “So if the person is not honest with the doctor, because of the way in which they are buying their drugs, and the doctor doesn’t even know to look out for this, the results can be deadly.”
Along with training doctors, Rainbow Access also does outreach to the LGBT community to get people to be more proactive about their own health-care needs.
While these groups’ goals may not be political in nature, they all agree on one thing: Improving the lives of transgender people in the area can only amount to more people feeling safe to come out, which in turn will give the community more visibility and therefore more political clout.
According Pauline Park, co-chair of the New York State Association for Gender Rights Advocacy, the benefit of having a visible community is twofold. “Coming out sends a message to society that an individual wishes to be treated with respect for whoever she or he sees herself or himself to be,” says Park. “But very important as well is the fact that a community derives political power from its visibility. When you have community in which most of its members are invisible to society, it is difficult for that community to assert itself in the political arena, particularly in the legislative arena.”
Park said that the only way that transgender people will come out in large numbers is with the passage of nondiscrimination laws to protect those in the transgender community.
“As it stands now, there is no explicit inclusion for transgender people under the law,” says Park. “Therefore it is legal to discriminate on the basis of gender identity or expression. Someone could say, ‘Well, you are transgender, so we are going to fire you or throw you out of your apartment,’ and there is no legal recourse.”
This is why many advocacy groups across the state have been fighting to see that SONDA, the Sexual Orientation Non Discrimination Act, be rewritten to include protection for transgender people. SONDA, which would add sexual orientation as a protection category to New York state’s human-rights law, has been pending in the state Legislature for 31 years. The passage of SONDA would make it illegal to discriminate against people because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual or straight. But until gender identity or expression are included in the bill’s language, the transgender community would not be protected against discrimination even if it were to pass. At this point, only New York City, Rochester and Suffolk County have transgender-inclusive anti-discrimination provisions in their human-rights statutes, while nationally, Minnesota and Rhode Island are the only states that have enacted such legislation.
“Sexual orientation alone would not protect us,” says Park. “Transgender and gender variance have to do with gender expression and not sexual orientation.”
The state’s human-rights law already prohibits discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations and education based on a person’s age, race, color, sex and marital status, but it fails to provide protection based on one’s sexual orientation, gender expression or gender identity.
This issue has caused quite a rift between many advocates for transgender rights and the Empire State Pride Agenda, the state’s largest lesbian and gay political organization, which wrote the language for the SONDA bill. ESPA spokesman Joe Tarver says that the group doesn’t want to include gender identity and expression in the bill because it could kill its chance of passing. The bill did pass in the Assembly this past session, but did not make it to the floor of the Senate.
But many argue that if the state’s largest advocacy group for gay rights were to put pressure on state legislators to pass SONDA with gender inclusion, the lawmakers would feel more pressure to come around.
“It is kind of a chicken-or-egg problem,” says Park. “In order to get legislatures to pay attention, you have to demonstrate real numbers, and you can’t do that if 90 percent of the population in the community is closeted and underground. But, unfortunately, they won’t come out in significant numbers until they have explicit legal protection from discrimination.”
Legislation or not, transgender people face a long road of self-discovery and endure great hardship in their struggle to express the gender in which they identify. In Stone’s work as a therapist, he spends a great deal of time helping people work through the consequences of living with such stigmatization.
After years of transgenders blaming themselves for their troubles, a significant shift in attitudes within the community occurred in the mid-’90s, when people began to assert that they were OK and that it was the bigots and discriminators who had the problems. Nevertheless, the years of being misunderstood, discriminated against and ostracized have paid their toll on many in the community.
“If you have walked around for years dealing with society’s prejudice with transgender people, you can’t help but take on some of the after effects of that,” explains Stone. “It could be isolation, could be depression, drug or alcohol problem, could be an unrealized life like working in the factory when really you could a teacher, but never wanted to do that for fear of getting discovered.”
According to the International Foundation For Gender Education’s Web site, transgender people are much more likely than others to commit suicide, turn to drugs or alcohol, end up in abusive relationships and suffer from depression. “The level of trauma suffered by transgender folk is much higher than the norm, and is reflected in more difficult lives and greater incidence of depression and despair,” reads a portion of the Web site.
Stacy Colon
Stacy Colon, who identifies herself as a transgender person of color who is also HIV positive, says that for many years she used drugs and alcohol as a way to cope with her struggle.
“It really boiled down to self-acceptance,” says Colon. “Because I know a lot of trans people who don’t come out during the day for fear of being targeted. But today, after years of living in hiding, I come first and everyone else can take a number.”
Colon says that with the help of Narcotics Anonymous and Colored American Transgender Society, a support group for transgender people of color, she doesn’t live in the shadows anymore.
Colon explains that being a person of color, transgender, a recovering addict and HIV positive is not an easy life. “You know, like all of the regular prejudices of society toward people of color compound with being transgender can be a lot,” says Colon “And even within the trans community I feel some prejudice, but I stay connected, I think that is the key. I have a lot of support in my life.”
Debra and Bridget Nelson agree that staying connected to others and having a strong support network in place is what has helped them most over the past few years. This is why, Debra says, they are so open about their situation with others.
“Education is the key,” says Debra. “Education at the mass level. People need to know and learn and understand what it means to be transgender. I don’t know that we will ever truly reach a place of true tolerance, but unless we educate people we will never increase the percentage of people that at can at least show some support.”
Although they admit that the decisions that they have made have not been easy on their children, they are adamant about the fact that families do not have to separate because one of the partners is transgender. They just wish that others would focus more on who they are and not what they appear to be.
“We are productive members of society, and that is what should be looked at,” says Bridget. “That and how I treat my family and those around me. I am just living my life, and I think more people need to be educated on what transgender people are all about, because once people get to understand they tend to let down their guard.”
Family transformation
Stillwater husband and wife
now wife and wife after sex change
JANE GOTTLIEB The man Debbie Nelson married
17 years ago is a onetime Stillwater High School basketball MVP
who stands 6-foot-4, wears blond hair that cascades below the
shoulders, pastel dresses, red nails and heels. The former Bernard Nelson, a state worker
and father of five, has just completed the five-year process of
becoming a woman. She now goes by the name of Bridget. "The
biggest thing is," she said, "we love each other. She loves me
for who I am, not my sex.
Staff
writer
"I love her regardless of the package on the outside," echoed Debbie Nelson, 39, who insists her unconventional marriage is an affirmation of the oldest notions on love and matrimony.
Although same-sex marriage is prohibited in all 50 states, Debbie and Bridget Nelson expect to become a legally married lesbian couple, a husband and wife turned wife and wife. The parents of three sons, they will remain in their mobile home set behind the cornfields that define their Saratoga County town of 7,000.
Many people in their situation have done so quietly. But the Nelsons are speaking up for the rights of same-sex partners.
"We got married in a church, a Methodist Church in Texas, and no law says you can no longer be married," said Bridget, 45, a towering figure seated in a living room dotted with family portraits reflecting only her current identity.
Lawyers who specialize in gender issues concur there is no precedent suggesting marriage can be undone by anyone other than the partners themselves -- a matter of consequence given the access spouses have to Social Security, pension, death benefits, insurance and custody.
But the volume on such discussions is being turned up as gays and lesbians in all 50 states press to legalize their vows, churches stake positions and cities extend domestic partner benefits.
And as battle lines are drawn, some activists see "transitioned" spouses like the Nelsons building a precedent. Others fear the couple is only inviting the courts to consider retroactive annulments, or worse.
"Why are they telling you about this? You don't have many taxpayers who go to the IRS and say "Audit me," Evan Wolfson, director for the Marriage Project at LAMBDA Legal Defense said on hearing of the upstate couple. "The government has not yet swooped in but that doesn't mean some bureaucrat won't."
Contrasting
couple
If the Nelsons are a legal anomaly, they are also a study in striking contrasts.
Bridget, who weighs 210 pounds, rises above granite shoulders and endless legs. She speaks in a gravelly voice made still gruffer by cigarettes. She buys her clothing, a size 16, where she can find it, grappling with sleeves that are too short, and occasionally special-ordering pumps, 12 wide. Dressed for work, she stands 6-foot-6. She uses satin and lace. Debbie, by contrast, sticks to a uniform of jeans and T-shirts.
Rising to Bridget's chest, Debbie is as compact as her partner is muscular and coiffed. Bridget speaks with caution. Debbie jokes often, as when she described shopping with her then cross-dressing husband. ("I was buying negligees but they weren't for ME!")
Even Bridget doesn't fully understand it, but Debbie insists she has no problem accepting her husband as a wife.
"When people say, "Are you a gay couple?" I say no, but that would be the way the world perceives us to be," said Debbie, a manager at an Albany restaurant.
Though the Nelsons are used to turning heads, they hardly set out to make a political statement.
Happiest as a female
Bernard Nelson, known around town as Benjy, is the eldest of five children born to a watchman and a homemaker. A skinny, standoffish student, he was especially adept at jump shots, earning Stillwater High School basketball MVP.
He spent much of his time with girls, but didn't date much -- something he considered later as he noticed his attraction to men. Bernard never considered such topics as homosexuality, let alone his own gender identity.
He went on to Hudson Valley Community College, married, and enlisted in the Air Force. He and his first wife had two sons when they split up in 1980 after six years. By then, he had begun having sex with men and experimenting with wearing women's clothes, something he had tried once or twice as a child.
Debbie, who grew up in Rochester, went to Monroe Community College hoping to become a journalist. She turned her creative energy to cooking and went to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park.
The two met in the officers club at Sheppard Air Force Base in Witchita Falls, Texas, where Bernard was stationed and Debbie was doing a culinary internship. They were engaged in two weeks, married in three months.
Debbie accepted that her husband was bisexual and liked to cross-dress. When the Air Force learned this, he was honorably discharged.
At home in Stillwater
Eventually, the Nelsons had three sons of their own and settled in a trailer community in Stillwater.
Bernard, armed with a degree in computer science, began work with the state Higher Education Services Corp.
They were regulars at the Stillwater Little League, and at Bowlero Lanes, where their children bowled Saturday mornings. Bernard was a Boy Scout leader, and involved with the county organization.
He was also going out after dark so that his children and neighbors would not see him in drag.
Eventually, Bernard wore women's apparel at home. Five years ago, on his 40th birthday, he realized he was happy only when he lived as a female.
"I had three choices: stay how I am and be miserable and make everyone else miserable. Leave Debbie and our kids, or stay here and be who I am," she said, repeating what she told their children the November night he decided to become Bridget for good.
Five-year process
On Oct. 19, Bridget had a sex change operation at Centre Metropolitain de Chirurgie Plastique in Montreal. Surgery followed a five-year regimen of counseling, living and dressing as a woman and taking hormones to soften the skin and swell the breasts. The protocol is intended to weed out anyone who is not truly prepared for surgery.
In fact, psychiatrists say the majority of patients who set out to change sex never complete the transformation, since they are diagnosed along the way with unrelated problems, such as alcoholism or sexual abuse. The rest, like Bridget, are diagnosed with gender dysphoria, where one's physical sex and gender identity are incongruous.
According to the International Foundation for Gender Education, up to 1,000 Americans each year have sex-change operations, although many more than that are believed to assume their chosen gender without surgery.
Today, gender dysphoria appears in the medical literature among mental disorders, and is considered a treatable condition, said Pierre Brassard, the plastic surgeon who operated on Bridget. He said transsexuals may be either gay or heterosexual.
Brassard, who has performed about 150 sex-change operations, also believes that after surgery patients have as much chance as anyone of being mentally sound.
But not everyone sees it that way.
"It's absolutely one of the most abnormal things a human being can do," charged Art Croney, executive director for the Committee on Moral Concerns in Sacramento, Calif. "It borders on self-mutilation, and what we feel is sadness. These are people who are tragically confused."
Stares, comments
Earlier this month, during a lunch break in the second-floor cafeteria in Albany's Twin Towers, Bridget, easily the tallest person in the room, didn't draw more than a few sidelong glances as she sat and chain-smoked. The other patrons, she suspects, were simply used to her.
But once she'd returned upstairs, several cafeteria employees who declined to give their names tittered and said they ignore her, whom they referred to as "It."
Another cafeteria worker, Rosemary Curtis, had a different attitude. "We have a lot of temporary workers who come in, and a lot are blown away when they see her. I say, "Leave her alone," when they joke or call her "Sir." I give her a lot of credit."
But Curtis still doesn't feel right about Bridget using the ladies restroom outside her office. She received permission to do so four years ago, prompting females to vacate the bathroom. That was around the time Bridget first entered Twin Towers in a dress.
Then local television news got hold of the story.
"They stuck a microphone in my face and kept the cameras rolling even though I asked them not to," said Bridget. "I said I had to go tell Debbie and our kids before they saw it on the news." She counts the experience among the most painful.
She has gained some acceptance, though some colleagues still call her "Sir," or simply do not use her name.
And, not surprisingly, the problems extend beyond her workplace. Nightclub bouncers have barred her from the ladies room and this past summer, at Saratoga Race Course, she was taken to the security office after a woman was scared to see her in a restroom.
Effects on family
"I don't know how they do it. You'd really have to not have a problem with people staring at you," said Sue Martin, the Nelson's next-door neighbor of seven years.
"There was much turmoil around here in the beginning. The kids went wild," she said. Teenagers bombarded the Nelson's trailer with eggs and the Nelson sons -- 8-year-old twins and a 10-year-old at the time -- were forced to defend their father against taunts. When police were summoned, Martin said they often expressed the wish that this family would start its new life elsewhere.
Although Martin said she has nothing against the Nelsons, she admitted having had the same thought.
"If we have company over and he passes by wearing a dress, our guests might say, "Oh my GOD,"" she said. "We just say we don't talk about it."
Martin, like some members of Bridget's family, is most disturbed about the impact of the ordeal on the Nelson's three sons, now 14 and 12, who live with friends upstate -- in part to avoid the scrutiny in Stillwwater.
"They are intelligent kids. They do well in math, but I think they are kids that really want attention," said Rick Nelson, one of Bridget's younger brothers. "If you ask them what they think about Bridget they will say, "We're OK," but deep inside I think the stuff comes home. Their family is so scattered."
Behavior problems
The boys have behavior problems that surfaced before Bernard began the transformation, but having a dad in dresses hasn't helped. As the date of the operation approached, the boys got into trouble at school for name-calling and fighting.
"I think part of it is they're scared it's going to happen to them," Debbie said. "They're right at puberty and getting interested in girls. I think maybe they think "If the girls see my father this way they'll think I'm that way, too.""
Bridget Nelson has contact with just one of two sons from her previous marriage. She has a strong relationship with her father, less so with her mother. The Nelson family's attitude toward her sex-change operation runs the gamut from acceptance to disgust.
"I believe for Bridget this is not a bad thing but the consequences for the rest of the family are real. Our kids are affected at school. We're not talking Los Angeles or Montreal," said Rick Nelson, who lives in Stillwater and maintains a better relationship with Bridget than the other siblings. "We don't want to be known as the person with the sex-change brother."
"But I still love him," Rick Nelson added. "He's my brother. My sister. My sibling."
He also said that he had watched his older brother, once argumentative and competitive and restless, grow much calmer and easier to get along with as Bridget.
Legal ramifications
The sex-change operation won't make Bridget look more traditionally female, nor give her a higher voice. But she is likely to be able to function sexually as a female. Also, Bernard will be forever stricken from the books, in place of "Bridget" on her driver's license, marriage license and birth certificate.
New York is one of 17 states where legal records can be altered to reflect a sex change. The Nelsons' case, in fact, underscores jarring contradictions: The state allows neither marriage nor guaranteed civil-rights protections for gays, and yet their union is all but sanctioned by virtue of medical protocol that spells out the steps, state-employee health insurance that covers the bulk of the cost, and health regulations allowing the switch to be recognized.
Some legal observers see this as peculiar, and fragile, public policy.
"As it rests now, if the health department changed counsels the whole policy of the state could change," said Timothy Tippins, a Troy attorney who chairs the state Bar Association's Task Force on Family Law.
Gay marriage bans
Hawaiian and Alaskan voters passed anti-gay marriage measures by 2-to-1 margins this past week. Congress also has countered with the Defense of Marriage Act, which would allow states to pass laws that bar recognition of same-sex marriages performed in other states. A handful of states have already done so, with California voters expected to have that chance in 2000.
"Our position is that in all of human history there has never been a government or a major religion where homosexuality or gender confusion is normal," said Croney of the Committee on Moral Concerns, a backer of the California law.
California has passed a law making it easier to prosecute crimes against transgendered people. In Ohio, a couple went to Illinois to get married since one partner had switched sex and Ohio does not allow identities to be altered on official records.
Although transsexuals have had custody requests denied in the past, a California judge ruled recently that a change of sex cannot be used as a reason for denying a woman's ex-husband custody of their children.
Stepping into the spotlight to establish standards are Bridget and Debbie Nelson, who never set out to make an example of their case, but have learned to do so as they saw other transgendered individuals, and their children, struggle. They are now involved in the Gay and Lesbian Community Center, giving speeches and interviews and even establishing their own Web site devoted to gender dysphoria.
Comfortable with decision
The Nelsons say they are fully aware of other's disapproval, and, particularly, the cost of the ordeal on their sons. They wish the boys had not had to endure their father's transformation, but neither do they feel exactly guilty. The alternatives -- living with an incessantly unhappy father or living without him -- were untenable. Living true to themselves, they say, was the only true option.
"I'm going to change everything from male to female because that is what I am," Bridget said on the eve of her surgery last month. "You just don't have a choice."
Taking Pride In
Who We Are:
Printed in May 97 "Capital District Gay and Lesbian
Community Council Newsjournal called Community "
It isn't every day that you meet a couple like Bridget and Debbie Nelson. Until three years ago, they were like many other heterosexual couples: married, two jobs, a house, and kids. With one difference, that is ... Bridget was a man who wanted to be a woman. On her 40th birthday she quietly, and with determination, decided to become who she knew she really was--Bridget Elise Nelson. "My mother said that I was selfish, self-centered, and lacked pride. I told her I agreed with the first two, but not the last. I finally felt that I had to make something right that was wrong. And I was the only one who could correct the situation."
As she saw it, Bridget had three choices. She could continue to stay closeted in the house and be unhappy. She could leave her family to live openly. Or she could "be happy by being who I am, where I am." Bridget stayed because she loved Debbie and because the support that Debbie offered had been (and continues to be) a lifeline for Bridget. "A problem for a lot of transgendered people," she explains, "is that they don't have the support they need which leads to depressive behavior which can be suicidal."
Married for fourteen years at the time, Debbie was not terribly surprised by Bridget's news. Bridget had been cross-dressing for years even while in the military. At first she just wore lingerie at home. "I didn't condemn her for it. She wasn't hurting anyone and it made her happy," says Debbie. When Bridget told her that she wanted to live openly as a woman, Debbie reasoned, "In some ways it would have been easier for me if she didn't stay, but we loved one another. I'd rather have her happy and be with me, than to have her unhappy and leave. What gives me a right to condemn her for being different?"
Early Signs and
Agonizing Decisions
"There really wasn't anything major," Bridget remembers. "Growing up, I always wanted to be the mother when my sister and I played house, but my feminine urges were mostly suppressed and I conformed to what I thought I was supposed to do. I played sports, dated and married two women, and had a career in the military. I was in high school when Christine Jorgensen's article came out in the Daily News. I thought about it a little, but not much."
"I cross-dressed for years afterwards. These weren't things you told your parents. You just made yourself as happy as you could. I did a little bit at a time ... from lingerie, to piercing my ears, to learning how to apply my own make-up. The feminine me was coming out more and more. About four years ago, I began cross-dressing at home full-time. I came home from work, slipped out of my shirt and tie, and put on a skirt and heels for the evening. Then I started to get up the courage to go out in public."
But the last few years before Bridget made her agonizing decision were increasingly stressful and unhappy. She was becoming painfully aware that she was only happy when she looked, felt, and acted as a woman. She began to get information from other transgender persons in the local area. She attended a few meetings of the Transgenderist Independence Club (TGIC) and she read everything she could find on the subject. More transgender people were coming out and Bridget saw some similarities between the lives of people like Rene Richards and Christine Jorgensen and herself. She found a videotape of a Discovery Channel program, "What Sex Am I?" and watched talk shows whenever they dealt with the subject.
Finally, she found a counselor who could help her understand whether what she thought was best for her, really was. Over the past three years, she has been working on meeting each of the professional standards of care required before sexual reassignment surgery can take place, including a psychiatric evaluation which recommends the surgery, a minimum of two years on hormones, and full-time living as a woman for at least one year. Her surgery was expected to take place this fall in Montreal, but because the surgery is very expensive and not covered by insurance it will be postponed for at least another year.
Once the surgery is complete, Bridget and Debbie still face a number of issues as a couple. They are struggling to redefine the nature of their social and sexual relationship. Although Debbie has always felt more at home in jeans and comfy shoes than dresses and heels, she wasn't altogether comfortable in a tuxedo at the recent Valentine's Gala. And, she notes, it's already getting harder to get Bridget to do minor repairs and other things that she used to do routinely around the house.
Being Out At
Work
Bridget's decision to be a woman had serious implications for her professional life. Unlike many of us who choose not to be "out" at work or who selectively or gradually come out to co-workers, Bridget's decision left her no choice about when, whether or how to tell her co-workers. From the moment she showed up for work in her first dress, she was out to everyone. Until then, she had been wearing women's shirts and pants; she wore her hair long, did her nails, and carried a purse. Still, wearing that red dress to the office is something that Bridget will never forget.
Her biggest problem at work has been around the bathroom. Once she began living as a woman, Bridget was uncomfortable using the men's room. She was afraid of being embarrassed or verbally or physically abused. However, several women protested that they weren't comfortable with Bridget using the women's room. In New York State, there are no laws prohibiting males from using bathrooms designated for women. Public facilities can be used by either men or women. In public employment, like Bridget's, it is up to the employer/employee to decide.
Her counselor urged her to go to the personnel office for support. But Bridget's employer refused to take a stand, leaving the decision up to her. Because she feared being falsely accused of improprieties by a few women, Bridget worked out an informal arrangement for (nearly) exclusive use of a second men's room on her floor. She notes that in the long run there is a simple solution to this problem: making bathrooms in newly constructed or renovated buildings unisex facilities.
"Even though people treated me wrong, I did my job well and dressed professionally at all times, so on the surface, they accepted or ignored the change." But little signs of disrespect still happen, like using the pronoun "he" or refusing to write or say her first name. "I feel like I take three steps forward and two steps back all the time. Some people have been supportive who I never thought would be. Others I thought would be supportive, are not."
Children and
Respect
Debbie and Bridget's greatest challenge, however, was how their school-aged children would handle the change. At the time, their twin boys were eight and their brother was ten. They were embarrassed as their father began to appear in public in women's clothing. "Does Daddy have to wear a dress?" they would ask. Later, they were teased about their father in school.
Eventually, Bridget and Debbie made the difficult decision to move the kids temporarily to live with friends so that they could adapt without having to face the daily taunts and questions of other children and adults, both in and out of school.
"People told me that Bridget should leave," Debbie said. "But she hasn't done any harm to anybody. And how would that help the kids? This way, we're still here. They have two loving parents who are together. Yes, there are repercussions, but would they have been better off if she had gone on being unhappy for the rest of their childhood's? There's a big difference between how she deals with them now and before. She's more sensitive, less angry, and more willing to talk things out. But it's not easy. Who wants to see their kids live with somebody else? To give them away for their own happiness? But we have to look at what's best for them right now.
"Bridget was even more adamant about what staying or leaving would mean to her and her children. "If I left," she says, "I would have been saying to my kids that what I was doing was wrong rather than right." Bridget feels that her kids, like the children of all gay and lesbian parents, need support in the schools to feel that their families are accepted even though different. She also feels strongly that the school system must do more to teach children to respect people, cultures, and relationships that are different. "Kids are human beings. They live in society. They must learn to respect everyone's differences."
But she cautions, "There is no need to address transgender issues separately. The issues of discrimination and stigma affect the lesbian and gay community, the people of color community, people with disabilities, and others. We have more power together than we do separately. The transgender community needs the support of these other communities. There's not enough of us to do it alone. United we stand, divided we fall."
Bridget Elise Nelson was a member of the CAPITAL DISTRICT GAY AND. LESBIAN COMMUNITY COUNCIL Board of Directors at the time of this article was written. She and her partner, Debbie, live with pride in Stillwater, New York For more information on transgenderism, contact the International Foundation for Gender Education by mail at PO Box 229, Waltham, MA 02254-02290, or by e-mail at isge@world.std.com
'Bridget and Debbie can be contacted
via e-mail at