Many transgender individuals--people who seek to change their gender--once felt compelled to live largely secret lives. Buoyed by the strides the gay community has made in recent decades, transgender people are increasingly speaking out.
On Feb. 13th, transgender actress Laverne Cox from the popular Netflix series, "Orange Is The New Black," will speak at Illinois State University during a conference sponsored by Midwest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students. This report is the first of two parts exploring the lives of transgender citizens in central Illinois. WGLT's Judy Valente has more.
It's a typical gym in Bloomington with people running on treadmills, lifting weights, working out at the bench press. Jordan Becker situates himself at a machine called the 'peck deck,' which helps build up pectorals and biceps.
"I'm just trying to get big all over...muscle mass. I came in weighing 155 now I weigh 185."
(Judy:) Pure muscle mass? "I like to think so."
Pumping 200 pounds of iron wasn't always possible for 25-year-old Becker, who served in the Army National Guard and worked as a correctional officer at the Pontiac Prison. That's because Jordan Eli Becker came into the world as Jordan Elizabeth Becker - a girl.
"It started at a very young age. You can look at pictures at my childhood and you can see when my parents stopped dressing me and I started dressing myself, always wearing little boy's clothes, and hanging out with the boys, playing football at recess. I don't mean to stereotype genders, but looking back I did take a more masculine role. Even playing house with my really good next door neighbor, I was always the husband."
Becker is one of an estimated seven hundred thousand transgender Americans. Being transgender is not the same as being homosexual or merely cross-dressing. It's a complex phenomenon known clinically as "gender dysphoria." Dr. Robert Garofalo works with transgender adolescents at Chicago's Lurie Children's Hospital.
"Being transgender is not what you do, it's not about your behavior, it's about who you are on the inside, feeling like you are sort of trapped or born into the wrong body."
Pop Culture Icons
The Netflix series "Orange is the New Black," which features transgender actress Laverne Cox, and the amazon Prime series "Transparent," about a father who decides to become a woman, have raised the public profile of transgender people.
Here's Laverne Cox in a recent public service announcement for the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition.
"When I encounter people they usually can tell I'm transgender. If I don't own it, then it becomes something I'm going to go around being shameful about all the time. For me, the whole transgender thing is a reality of my life, it's a reality of my existence. It's something I've come to understand is beautiful about me."
And here's actor Jeffrey Tambor in January accepting a Golden Globe Award for his role in "Transparent."
"I would like to dedicate my performance and this award to the transgender community. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your courage, thank you for your inspiration, thank you for your patience and thank you for letting us be part of the change."
Trapped in the Wrong Body
Public awareness may be increasing, but Dr. Garofalo of Lurie Children's Hospital, says little is still known about what causes a person to feel extreme discomfort with their assigned gender.
"We suspect there are probably biological or genetic underpinnings but the exact mechanisms, sort of brain structures, none of that has been really looked at."
As a pediatrician, Dr. Garafalo says he sees patients as young as six years old who already exhibit an intense discomfort with their gender. That was the case for Jordan Becker.
"A lot of my depression growing up was due to the fact that I felt like I was born in the wrong body."
Two years ago, Becker began hormonal treatments, taking injections of testosterone every two weeks. At his own expense, he had his breasts surgically removed, a sixty-five hundred dollar operation.
"It's not just skin deep. It's so much more than about hormones, it's about becoming who I always wanted to be."
Because of hormone treatments, Becker now sports a trim goatee. His workouts, and the testosteron treatments, have given him bulging biceps.
"Now, walking into the men's bathroom, I don't even get a second look."
Fighting on Two Fronts
Becker says he's never been happier. But it's been a difficult journey. Becker spent six years in the Army military police. He learned to scale walls, operate a tank and shoot an M-16 rifle. But he could not pursue a military career. While gays can join the armed services, transgender individuals are considered "mentally and physically unfit for duty."
"It is frustrating, knowing I'm willing to serve my country, go overseas and die for my country. But because of some regulations in a book that disqualifies me."
Becker currently works as a personal trainer. He is also working with the American Civil Liberties Union to try to change the military's policy. He says an even greater challenge is convincing others to see beyond gender, to the person he is.
"To someone who doesn't know me, I look biologically a male. You get to know me as a male and if you find out I'm a female, then it seems like things change. I am who I am and I'm still that same person whether you know I am biologically a female or whether you think I was biologically born a male."
Family Acceptance a 'Journey'
(Kristen Haley:) "If we were to aspire to something we would just be in society, we would just be living."
Life is a complex juggling act for Kristen Haley. Haley was born male. At work in Peoria, Haley is Chris, a business owner who wears a shirt tie, and jacket to hide burgeoning breasts, the result of estrogen treatments. At home, Haley becomes Kristen, a woman in an ash blond wig with a fondness for dangling earrings. Haley has also been married for nearly forty years to the same woman.
"I have four grown children and 10 grandchildren."
Haley's parents took him to a doctor when he experienced delayed puberty. The doctor prescribed testosterone injections.
"I was cured, so to speak. I went on to have girlfriends, I married, had children. But being transgender never left."
Haley began self-medicating with estrogen pills. He tried on his wife's clothes when she was out of the house. Eventually, in 1998, after twenty years of marriage, Haley told his wife the truth.
(Judy:) How did your wife take that news?
Kristin: "Terribly. It was terrible. I think she felt betrayed. She says she went through a lot of grief at the loss of her husband. We're certainly not normal yet, but she knows all about me, we talk about it daily. It's part of our married life. It doesn't mean she likes it, but we have agreed we love each other too much and a life apart seems unconscionable."
Haley's wife declined to be interviewed. And the children?
"They remember me as Dad and want me to be Dad. It's a journey for them too. But they seem to accept me as this. They haven't ostracized me from their families. With the grandchildren they are all toddlers right now, but it's raising some questions as to how this is going to integrate into our family life, you know, what will they call me. Right now, they only know me as Pop-Pop."
For now, Haley says he'll continue his dual identity. His co-workers know the truth about him, but as a business owner he says he worries how his customers and creditors might react.
"I'm not a freak. I'm a real, genuine person, I'm a loving person, productive person in society. I'm responsible and lots of us are. We're normal, everyday people except for this. We're not threatening to society. This is not a handicap, it's not a disorder, we're just different."
Male or Female?
Like Haley, 19-year-old Ande Biggs also felt like a female trapped in a male's body. Born with an extra X chromosome, a condition known Klinefelter's syndrome, Biggs exhibited feminine physical characteristics as an adolescent, including lack of body hair and larger breasts than other boys.
"I mean people were identifying me as being more toward the girl category without me doing anything. Because when you're that young your self-identity is put on you. You don't have a chance to represent that yourself."
In fourth grade, Biggs dispensed with name of Andrew and began writing her name as Ande which she thought sounded more feminine. In junior high school photos, Biggs appears almost androgynous. Today, after a year of estrogen injections and taking testosterone blocking pills, Biggs looks like she just stepped out of a photo in a teen girls magazine.
"I was working at the Taco Bell up in Washington...and I started my transition there. The entire time they identified me as a 'he' even in the later periods of me working there when I was in in my eyes fully passable and I could present as a female one hundred percent, they would still refer to me as he. Customers would call me m'am or miss and the manager would turn around and call me he or sir, which was very demeaning and hurtful,. But at my new job which is kind of almost like a test that I passed because no one has mis-gendered me at all. I think one person made a joke about my voice being kind of deep."
Transitioning from one sex to another is not easy. In order for a physician to write her a prescription for female hormones, she first had to undergo several months of psychological counseling and obtain a psychologist's letter certifying a diagnosis of "gender dysphoria."
(Judy:) Inside, how do you feel?
"I would consider myself a heterosexual woman attracted to males."
But it's more complex. Biggs has not had a sex change operation and doesn't plan to. While many insurance policies will cover hormone treatment, most will not pay for anatomical surgeries. And Biggs bristles at the notion that she needs such a complete transformation.
"That would be putting myself up for major surgery. People downplay the severity of the surgery, but you can die with that surgery. It's a major area and a very sensitive area."
Still, Biggs says she hopes to find a life partner and someone who will focus on what's in her heart, not his pants.
"I just hope to have a happy life. I also want to help people, of course. No trans people have any role models, I feel. I know of one actress, Laverne Cox. That's literally all I know...I just want to be some sort of a role model, someone or something others can look up to and see that if I can do it, they can do it, and hopefully dispel some misconceptions in the community."
'The Road Less Traveled' Like Biggs, Jordan Becker and Kristen Haley echo that plea for understanding. Back at the gym, Becker shows off a tattoo across his arm.
"This tattoo is symbolic of finding peace within yourself."
It says, "I took the road less traveled," a motto he says describes most transgender individuals. According to the National Center for Transgender Equality, transgender people experience double the national rate of unemployment. 90% say they experience discrimination and harassment on the job. Tomorrow, in Part Two of the series, we'll report on the complex religious questions transgender individuals raise for many faith communities.