Life as a transsexual (http://www.dailyitem.com/archive/2005/0516/local/stories/11local.htm)
By Eric Mayes
The Daily Item (http://www.dailyitem.com/)
LEWISBURG — Valeri Schnatter never expected the hatred that met her when she moved to the Susquehanna Valley.
In the nine years she's lived in the Lewisburg area, the transsexual said she has been asked to leave several churches and harassed by neighbors and even the local police.
Though her driver's license still bears the name Vincent G. Schnatter, most other documents list her as Valeri, and she prefers to be addressed as a female.
Sex reassignment surgery has proven too expensive for Ms. Schnatter, forcing her to live in a state of androgyny. People seem unable see past an exterior that may not meet their expectations, she said, to notice the person inside.
"It doesn't matter what I believe or what I do in people's lives because I'm a transsexual," said Ms. Schnatter.
Admitting that she was in fact a transsexual took a long time for Ms. Schnatter. And, it has not been easy.
The 54-year-old grew up in Edison, N.J., in a family where she was one of four children. At the age of 5, she started to dress in her mother's and sister's clothing.
"I felt more comfortable in the role of a girl," she said.
Not content with the trappings of femininity, she also longed to become a girl.
"I told my sister that on more than one occasion," she remembered.
Her sister told her parents, who had no desire to discuss such things.
"It was taboo," Ms. Schnatter said.
Isolated, she turned to alcohol, drinking regularly at the age of 11.
"With alcohol you felt the courage to be macho," she said.
By the time she turned 17 she was doing heroin. It was, she said, a way to keep her distracted from the truth.
"I was totally ignorant on the subject (of transsexuality)," Ms. Schnatter said. "It was scary. I was afraid to get found out."
So she repressed her true feelings, and, labeling herself a transvestite, got married — not once but three times. She also fathered three children, two sons and a daughter. Both sons died soon after being born but her daughter survives.
Eventually, she kicked both drugs and alcohol and has now been clean for 26 years.
After the final marriage broke up, Ms. Schnatter decided to leave the area of lower Berks County near Philadelphia, where she had been living. First she moved to Lewisburg and then East Buffalo Township where she now lives. It was in Lewisburg she admitted to herself that she was a transsexual.
Neither community was particularly welcoming, she said.
Out bowling once in Mifflinburg, she overheard comments like: "If they want a sex change we'll take them out back and give them a sex change."
It was an eye-opening experience.
"When situations like that happen you know what you're up against here," she said.
Nowhere was Ms. Schnatter exempt.
"I get stared at something terrible," she said.
Her neighbors harassed her and when she turned to the police, she said, the problems sometimes got worse because responding officers from the Lewisburg and East Buffalo departments came in like "stormtroopers."
Usually problems could be solved by talking to the chiefs at both departments, who she credited with lending a sympathetic ear.
But she's still afraid to call the police.
"I can't call the cops," she said. "Automatically they just get a negative view."
Even the place where solace might be expected — the church — rejected Ms. Schnatter. She was turned away by the Catholic church and a Lutheran church in Lewisburg and by a third denomination in Milton.
Though most Unitarians were welcoming not everyone in that congregation was friendly.
"It was like, if we don't talk about it maybe it will go away," she said of her experience at the Northumberland church. "I didn't know Christ said you can be selective with the Golden Rule."
In fact not only have local churches made it clear they don't want her as part of their congregations, the Bible has been used time and again to attack Ms. Schnatter, she said. She added that perhaps those who use it as a weapon have missed the point.
"From my education of Jesus Christ, he sat around with prostitutes, robbers and people like that," she said. "He didn't say 'oh that person is a sinner.'"
Another place where Ms. Schnatter might have expected a cordial reception and hasn't found one is the local gay community, she said.
"For the most part people stay away," she said. "You don't get invited to parties or family gatherings. It gets very lonely."
Ideally, Ms. Schnatter said she could be a positive role model in the community. She is someone who has kicked drugs and alcohol and might be able to help others.
"I'll do anything within my power or life to help anybody," she said. "I always reach my hand out to the new person."
Even if that never happens, she just wants to be treated like anybody else.
"Regardless of who or what I am, I have a certain amount of civil rights," Ms. Schnatter said.
E-mail comments to emayes@dailyitem.com
*The full article posted here with the permission of the author.
I wish to thank the author for giving me permission to host the entire article on the site. Thank you Eric.
thisd article makes me wonder what iam doing, but also make me sad asnd angry. at people
justignore me im an idot
People will be people.
Ultimately I think the species will turn out alright, but very definitely not without some bumps along the way. Unfortunately some of those bumps happen in our times..
Quote from: Phoenix on May 25, 2005, 07:58:25 PMthisd article makes me wonder what iam doing, but also make me sad asnd angry. at people
justignore me im an idot
:icon_shrug_no: No, not an idiot by any means.
Fwiw, I've wondered what in tarnation I am doing quite a few times. This path isn't something any sane person contemplates let alone travels along. Yet sane or not this is the path I travel, willingly and gladly, not that I have any choice in the matter, regardless what some people may think.
Thank you Eric, very kind.
i think: you'd have to be insane to choose this path. to contemplate it, or to travel it... not necessarily. only insane to choose it. and as we each know, we didn't choose it.
Quote from: Svetlana on May 25, 2005, 08:35:42 PM
i think: you'd have to be insane to choose this path. to contemplate it, or to travel it... not necessarily. only insane to choose it. and as we each know, we didn't choose it.
Hum... excellent point and I concur.
Although, I'd have to wonder about one who contemplates it much ;)
"Fwiw, I've wondered what in tarnation I am doing quite a few times. This path isn't something any sane person contemplates let alone travels along"
Sanity is a very relative thing, what to one is insane, to another is perfectly reasonable and correct. Choice? Many years ago, I made a concious choice and worked hard to make that choice stick, as it turned out, the choice to turn my back on it in total was the ultimate insanity and as such, in it's own way, drove me to the brink of insanity.
Since realizing the above nearly 10 years ago and again making a concious choice to accept my lot in life for what It was and is and deal with it constructively, the insanity has diminished, but to many of the results of living contrary to myself are still all to evident, but time will overcome, I know this, and as of now, nothing that can happen and no matter what the future outcome, I am happier as a person, even if it does mean being something few really understand outside of simple live and let live. The more I gravitate toward those who can look beyond what was and accept what is, the more I am sure of this.
I am just slugging it out day today. Some days make sense some days don't. I feel that I am just following a path that life has chose for me. I know how I feel but I don't always know what to do with it. The end of the tunnel seems far away. I accept that I am female, but exactly what that means is not clear to me.
"exactly what that means is not clear to me. "
Nor can it be until you have totally immerced yourself in it, lived by it's realities, and accept the difference in realities as being part of your life as a woman.
to know what you are within yourself is not the same as the experience of living by it within the actual environment of it.
Quote from: Terri-Gene on May 28, 2005, 11:18:05 AM
... Sanity is a very relative thing, what to one is insane, to another is perfectly reasonable and correct. ...
Heehee! That is SOO true!
I've also been exceptionally fond of the "in the eye of the beholder" type quotes and variations, as they are so true. Tis a shame, I don't think enough people pay enough attention to that.
Quote from: Terri-Gene on May 28, 2005, 02:17:21 PM
... to know what you are within yourself is not the same as the experience of living by it within the actual environment of it. ...
That is exceptionally true, I think.