Thanks for the link! That was a great video. I watched it on my apple tv. Watching that video made me think of the Michelle Kosilek case right here in Massachusetts. I have to admit it, I was one of the people like so many others who piled onto Michelle. Late last year I had an opportunity to read about Michelle's life and I had a change of heart. I heard that she desperately wanted to change her gender. Then she met a woman named Cheryl that said it was okay, and then once they married tried to get Michelle to change. Michelle made attempts to leave the relationship and the wife backed down only to start right back up as soon as things were worse. One night with a lot of drinking and a fit of rage, the unthinkable happened and Cheryl Kosilek as dead. Michelle was found a few days later dressed in womens clothing. All she ever wanted in life was to have a gender transition and the only thing that stands in the way is the government. The taxpayers have paid millions of dollars now trying to block this case. They could have helped to feed so many people, did some good for an nner city, but instead a handful oflawyers and politicians have gottedn rich making it into a pile of bull->-bleeped-<-, when they have no medical training whatsoever.
Then it finally struck me. I, of all the people in this world should know how strong that urge is to do this one thing in life. It's like I was born to do this one thing. Isn't it possible that Michelle Kosilek was a kindred spirit? If I were in that place and forced to live as a man because of the circumstances of my birth, how in the hell would I feel?
One last thing, I personally feel that the US prison system is completely out of control. We are taking marginal people never mind trans people, putting them with hardened criminals and what do we expect coming out the other side of the prison system? If we treat people inside like animals, then we are going to end up with animals out the other side. I remember a case about 2 years ago when a spanish speaking woman was arrested during a domestic disturbance. She did did not speak a word of english, but had a deep voice. So the cops, and prison officials assumed she was trans and put her in a male prison. Only she wasn't. She was a natural born female, who was repeatedly raped over and over, and strip searched in front of male prisoners. My first thought was, how in the hell can something like this happen? How do the guards get away with this? How come they are not disbarred from any kind of law enforcement and added to the sex offender registry?? Only after several rapes occurred that they figured out she was a woman. I never knew what happened to that case but that could have been any of us MTF or FTM.
We have a local womens prison not far from where I am, and they had thier own controversy where male guards were doing the strip searches of women coming in and video taping it. Some of these women may have been abused, prostitutes, or were very much afraibeing locked in a room naked with a bunch of men. I just cannot fathom how these things can happen in 2013.
