The sense of relief was palpable, the sound of chains unlocking loud and clear.
Those were the undeniable realities I got from our five-day transgender series last week. The people we spoke to, their emotions and identities no longer imprisoned, could not contain their happiness over simply being themselves.
They seemed reborn, free, resembling Andy Dufresne from The Shawshank Redemption as he stood in the rain with his arms raised to the sky shortly after he’d escaped from prison.
And no amount of staring, or whispering, or off-color jokes, or bigotry, could keep our sources from telling their stories, smiling the whole way.
They wanted you to know how they felt, where they’d been, where they hoped to go. They wanted you to know that those inner voices that had been speaking to them, confusing them, nudging them toward a goal they knew might be laughed at in certain corners of society, had broken through.
As Mikayla Bourque of Laconia, a transgender woman, told Monitor writer Allie Morris: “Talk about night and day. Imagine for the first time actually being who you are to other people, and people actually see you.”
Once the clouds had lifted, once the inner turmoil that had stopped them from tapping into their true potential was gone for good, the leftover peace of mind was startling. Their names and ages and occupations and time served in this societal prison were all different, of course, but the common thread that stitched them together was clear: They had made it home, safely.
My transgender person was 20-year-old Ray Ramsey, named Concord High’s Homecoming King three years ago. Ramsey followed a typical path, first accepting the fact that, as Rachel Ramsey, “she” was gay and that was that.
“It was not quite right,” Ramsey told me at Memorial Field. “Something was still missing.”
Something, indeed, was missing: Ramsey’s life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Since undergoing a mastectomy and taking hormones, Ramsey has more hair and a deeper voice, but he’s not ignorant to the facts of life.
“Trans men are actually trying to change themselves from how they were physically born, and a lot of people see that as destroying God’s work,” Ramsey wrote in an email. “Going against what he has created and almost telling him he was wrong or made a mistake. A lot of people can’t deal with it yet.”
One of those people is a former Monitor reader who canceled her subscription in a letter to us, writing, “Your ‘Living Transgender’ highlighted series just made me puke in my mouth – and spitting into your paper is about the only thing it’s good for. So cancel!”
We heard opposite views as well, none more powerful than the one expressed in an email written by a young writer from Warner, a trans man.
He wrote: “I wanted to tell you that because of this series, my parents were finally able to understand a bit more what it means to be trans, and the fact that it doesn’t ‘happen’ in just one way. Thank you for opening the discussion within my family. . . . That hadn’t been possible before they picked up the paper on Sunday morning.”
I ran into the man’s father, an old friend, at a forum on transgender people, hosted by the Monitor Thursday night at the Barley House. I asked him about his own, personal transition.
He mentioned his son’s qualities, like intelligence, kindness, thoughtfulness and respect for others.
“It’s been easy,” the dad said. “He’s a great kid.”
His son wrote us because he felt stronger, more confident, less like an outcast. I asked Anne Boedecker, a licensed Concord psychologist and senior gender specialist, for her input. She mentioned a client named Chris, whose life changed after he admitted to himself and others that he’d feel better living as a male.
“My journey with Chris showed me how much someone’s mental health can improve by assuming the gender role that matches that internal sense,” Boedecker said in an email. “Being seen as a man or woman by others validates that identity.”
And with validation came great interviews for our series. Bourque’s oldest daughter, Ashley Janvrin, told Morris she didn’t lose a father when Bourque legally changed her name from Michael.
“It honestly was like gaining a so much better connection with her,” Janvrin said. “When she was Mike, she wasn’t a happy person.”
Kae Mason, once known as Keith, owns Salon K in Concord. She told writer Elodie Reed: “It’s an absolute joy to have clarity. It’s a beautiful thing if you know who you are.”
Dr. Jennifer Madden, who runs a family practice in Amherst and sees many transgender patients, told staffer Ella Nilsen: “I feel like I don’t have to carry this lie inside of me. I can do a lot of the things I felt uncomfortable doing before.”
And Alex Dannehl, a transgender man who played on the University of New Hampshire women’s rugby team, told Leah Willingham, “I realized I can’t stop thinking about this forever – the feeling was never going to go away.”
No, it won’t, which is why Monitor editors and reporters chose to examine the issue, one that affects so many areas of life. And it became obvious to us that times are changing, albeit slowly, in every nook and cranny of our culture.
Except, perhaps, one.
Last Sunday, a federal judge in Texas blocked the Obama administration’s recent guidelines meant to bolster the momentum generated by the transgender movement.
“It all boils down to the bathroom,” Bourque said. “That’s the final frontier.”
(Ray Duckler can be reached at 369-3304 or rduckler@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @rayduckler.)