Bullying is latest battle for transgender activist
By Eric Kurhi
Oakland Tribune
Posted: 01/10/2011 12:00:00 AM PST
http://www.insidebayarea.com/top-stories/ci_17039823HAYWARD -- Don't dare try to dog Kari McAllister -- she'll have none of it.
The 57-year-old transgender Jill-of-all-trades is on a mission to stop bullying, be it in schools, at work or at home. And she certainly won't put up with any kind of harassment directed her way.
"Without ever being terribly threatening, she is able to exert a presence that says, 'I'm OK, and you don't have to accept me if you don't want to and I'm still OK,' " said Betty DeForest, who worked with McAllister at the Lighthouse Community Center, a gathering place for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender folks. "And they hear her. Even the most rabid have heard her."
Take, for example, the time McAllister was in line to catch a movie in Union City four years ago, a few years after she publicly became a woman full time.
