In Small-town Northern California, When 'She' Becomes a 'He'

[Shana A]

In Small-town Northern California, When 'She' Becomes a 'He'

A change for the better meets with mostly compassion from the town where he was raised.

http://healdsburg.patch.com/articles/in-small-town-northern-california-when-she-becomes-a-he

Healdsburg's Tyler Erlendson is better known to many in town as Audra Erlendson, a female volleyball and fast-pitch softball player at Healdsburg High School in the late 1990s and early 2000s, graduating in 2001.

Audra made the switch to Tyler in 2007 in an operation done by a San Francisco surgeon. But rather than disappear after that to build a new life with a new identity, Erlendson chose to stick around his 4-square-mile, 11,250-person Sonoma County wine country hometown, where he has family and friends -- and a measure of tolerance.

[...]

Now, Erlendson's film on his sex change, seven years in the making, has been accepted into a prominent film festival in L.A. next month. He said he hopes to have the first Bay Area screening at Healdsburg's venerable Raven Theater--if they will have him.