The Truth, Set Me Free
Get out and vote!
Shoot for the moon, and even if you miss, you’ll be among the stars!
The day I transitioned, I finally became free to live my life as Karen. When I was Tony, I was happy, but never the way I am now. In this article, I’ll speak about myself in the third person about Tony, because I am no longer him, and he is so different from who I am today. Tony was highly active — with friends, women, volunteering, going out, and enjoying what he thought was happiness. The problem was that Tony wasn’t truly happy, because he was carrying a big secret and living a double life. Tony was a wonderful man, but living a lie about who he really was inside was tearing him apart.
In June 2010, Tony was invited to attend the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference. After years of praying for God to show him why he had been dressing like a woman, at that conference, Tony found the answer. Hearing other transgender people’s stories, he finally understood who he was on a deep level. Over the following three months, Tony worked with his job to prepare for coming out to his family, friends, and coworkers on October 1, 2010. That understanding, which began back in June 2010, became a realization of the truth and a determination to be free. So, on October 1, 2010, the chains came off, and the doors that had kept me locked away for so long finally opened wide.
Once I walked out that door that had kept me captive for 40 years, I became 150% happier. No more hiding who I was or living only in the dream of what I had been thinking about for years — I was free to be open with my family, friends, coworkers, and, most of all, with all of my volunteer groups, as myself. Later, I was asked to join the Maryland Defense Force, which I was happy to do. A year after that, I started speaking at small events about my transition and the good things that had been happening to me ever since I became Karen. Ever since, I’ve made appearances with police and fire departments, county and federal government agencies, the military, schools, colleges, universities, religious organizations, and community organizations. In these speaking engagements, my goal isn’t to change anyone’s beliefs — it’s to help people understand and respect who I am and who my community is. Through this work, I’ve changed minds about how people view the transgender community.
Once the federal government lifted pandemic-related travel restrictions, I began volunteering with the Department of Justice’s Community Relations Service, traveling around the country to help bridge the gap between law enforcement and the transgender community. I hope that by sharing my story and my life as a transgender woman, law enforcement officers will gain a better understanding of and respect for our community, including how to treat us when they stop or detain someone, how to act during an arrest, and how to conduct a search when someone’s identification doesn’t match how they present. Understanding how an officer approaches a transgender person can make a real difference in how that encounter unfolds. On our end, we have no idea what’s going through an officer’s mind during a traffic stop either. I remember one night, about ten years before my transition, when I was stopped by DC Police and the officer noticed my driver’s license didn’t match how I was dressed. He asked how I would like to be addressed. In my head, I was thinking, “I don’t care, I just don’t want to be arrested.” He explained why he’d stopped me and let me go with a verbal warning. As I drove off, I felt genuinely good about how that officer had handled the traffic stop.
What I want to leave you with: get out and vote, Shoot for the moon, and even if you miss, you’ll be among the stars!