Nathan Manske
Founder and Executive Director, I'm From Driftwood
True LGBTQ Stories: Transgender Man Receives Apology, Respect After 5-Year Wait (VIDEO)
Posted: 1/13/12 04:58 PM ET
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-manske/lgbtq-stories-transgender_b_1202731.htmlDru Levasseur, prior to coming out as a transgender man, was very active in the lesbian community:
It was a really scary time, when I was starting to realize I was trans. I had had a lesbian wedding -- two white dresses -- and was very visibly a lesbian. I was very much identifying with that culture, and gay bars were the place I could go to feel safe and feel like I could be myself.
In the summer of 2003, Dru's best friend suddenly died of a brain hemorrhage at age 29. The night he found out, he wanted to go to a gay bar to cope with the horrible news. While there he decided to use the men's bathroom for the first time:
This was a really scary, courageous step to take for me... Unfortunately, this bouncer came in after me and said, 'You're in the wrong bathroom.' Because of what happened with my best friend and what I was going through at the time, I responded, 'No, I'm not,' and I wasn't gonna leave.
