Kelly: Protecting rights hits home for transgender prof
By Michael Kelly
WORLD-HERALD COLUMNIST
http://www.omaha.com/article/20120304/NEWS01/703049939Nearly seven years ago, a widely known professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha went before a judge for a personal name change — from Walter to Meredith.
On that morning of June 28, 2005, the judge approved, a public step in the professor's private transition from male to female.
Along with physical procedures and surgeries, legally taking a feminine name — Meredith — was significant for the former two-term president of the UNO Faculty Senate, previously known as Walter M. Bacon Jr.
"I am not gay," Bacon wrote to colleagues in the political science department. "I am not a cross-dresser or transvestite. I am transsexual, or transgendered."
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Published Thursday March 1, 2012
Michael Kelly: Meet Meredith
http://www.omaha.com/article/20120301/NEWS/120309922Editor's note: This column was originally published on July 17, 2005.
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For most of his life, UNO professor Wally Bacon felt he was a woman inside a man's body. Years ago, he shared those feelings with his wife, Lynne. Last year, he began the difficult, public journey toward living as a woman. This is their story.
The professor arrived at the Douglas County Courthouse on a June morning to ask that his name be legally changed. He did so for a very personal reason -- to tell the world that he is not a he, but a she.
