Fierce and Fabulous

Release Date: 05-06-2009
Author: Lee Ann Cox1

http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmpr/?Page=News&storyID=14277

Some have tattoos to look tough or hip. But the large one peeking from Owen Daniel-McCarter's sleeve is sweet. It depicts a childhood memory of flying a kite with his beloved grandfather, who was gay. The idyllic scene is as you'd expect, except Daniel-McCarter '04 is wearing a dress.

The dress is a universally understood symbol of the sex he was assigned at birth, but Daniel-McCarter now identifies more closely as male than female. It can be a confusing concept for the uninitiated, but a couple hours with this charismatic "trans-identified" activist attorney — transgender, translucent, transgressive — and you may be the one transformed, with a new way of seeing, a new empathy, a new scrutiny of both self and systems that determine how justice is meted out.