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Day of Remembrance, 2009
Billings, Montana
Good Evening and Welcome!!
I am honored to be here tonight and be a part of Montana's 2nd annual Transgender Day of Remembrance. This is such a special day for me. A day on which I can publicly share and celebrate the life of a very special woman that I was given the blessing to meet, care for, learn from, and most importantly, love.My name is Michelle Alexander and I am a Home Health, Hospice Nurse. I have been a Registered Nurse for almost a quarter of a century, the majority of my career being in Home Health and Hospice. In that time, I have had the opportunity to care for hundreds of ill and dying patients, covering a broad spectrum of humanity, including: the rich and the poor; the old and the young; male and female; of numerous nationalities, ethnicities and cultural backgrounds.
In the year 2006, I was blessed with an assignment to care for a patient who touched my heart and touched my life in a way that no other patient had before. Her name was Mishelle, and she was a transgender woman. She was put on our Home Health Service for a seven day course of intravenous antibiotics to treat a respiratory infection. What began as a seven day professional encounter turned into a four and a half month expedition into identity, gender and unconditional acceptance that affected me profoundly then and continues to affect me, even today.
Until the time that I met Mishelle, my experience with the transgender community had been essentially nonexistent. My only encounter was in a well known drag club in Portland that my mother took me to while I was still in Nursing School. Her intention, at that time, was to broaden my horizons, given my small town origins in Butte, Montana. Up to that point, I'd had very little exposure to anything resembling diversity.
Before meeting Mishelle, my mental image of a transgender person was what I saw that night in the drag club; what I now know to be an unrealistic portrait of the transgender community. With a casual, unthinking prejudice, I assumed that Mishelle was a male who chose to dress as a female. I thought of her as a transvestite, a term largely acknowledged today as obsolete. I soon discovered that my prejudices regarding Mishelle were equally obsolete.
Mishelle was utterly unique in my experience in that she was completely blind. Totally blind -no shadows, nothing. But she had a relatively powerful memory of having had sight for the first eighteen months of her life. She thought she may have remembered the colors red and green and images of her family farm. She was fifty-six years old when I met her. I would like all of you to consider for just a brief moment the kind of self awareness it would require to be sure of one's own inner identity despite being blind. She had no one and nothing to compare herself to on an external basis. She only had her own deep, innate sense of self , her inner vision to guide her on her long and painful journey.
To my eternal shame, I confess that for the first three weeks of our relationship, I felt awkward around Mishelle and found myself repeatedly judging her. I remained respectful of her; but judge her, I most certainly did. Secretly, I hoped that she couldn't sense this. I was conflicted; uncomfortable with her and more uncomfortable with myself for my inability to find a measure of acceptance with my patient.My discomfort with Mishelle continued for about three weeks. I was very curious and bursting with questions, but I didn't want to offend her by being nosy. But she must have sensed my curiosity because she broke the ice by telling me:
"If you have the courage to ask, I have the courage to answer."
That was all it took to begin the process of opening my mind and heart to her. Mishelle became my teacher and I gladly became her student. She gave me books to read and videos to watch. With each assignment, the questions multiplied and my curiosity grew by leaps and bounds. She then gave me her journal to read. This was typed on an old fashioned typewriter, not a Braille typewriter, mind you. It covered the years 1988 to 1991, which was the time period of her transition from Michael to Mishelle. It was filled with her deepest emotions and darkest fears. Reading it, I discovered that her daily existence was filled with pain, rejection, fear and moral questions the likes of which I'd never considered.
My heart was now open to her. I too had been blind. But now my eyes were opened and I understood. I could see that being a transsexual was not a choice nor was it a lifestyle. It could only come from within. I finally realized that it was not about the clothing, nor was it about merely being feminine, but was instead wholly concerned with identity: a deep sense of self.
The core of this realization was her blindness. She did not have a visual construct of what a female or a male looked like. She could not look at another woman and think: "That is what I want to look like. That is how I want to dress."
It was at this time that I began crossing professional boundaries with Mishelle, something I had never done in over twenty years of a successful career in nursing. I began visiting her on my off time. I introduced her to my husband and two boys--ages 9 and 12 at the time. We took her under our wing and made her part of our family. She visited our home--with our cheerful assistance--on numerous occasions, most notably for her fifty-seventh birthday. I gave her my cell phone number, my home phone and my email address: all violations of professional conduct. Nevertheless, it felt like the right thing to do and still does.
Mishelle transitioned in Kalispell, Montana, a small town with a population of perhaps seven thousand hard-nosed conservatives. Believe me when I say that her transition was completely and utterly an act of self-determination: raw, unadulterated courage and iron will. Like many of the transgender community, she had no guidance, no assistance and very few resources to draw upon; a situation further complicated by her blindness. She could not find a physician to prescribe her the necessary replacement hormones. Eventually, she did contact a counselor but ironically, he had no knowledge of gender issues, nor any experience working with a transgender client. She had very little support from her friends or family. The employment possibilities for a blind trans woman in Kalispell in the late Eighties were extremely limited. But despite all of the adversities in her path, she did not let them stop her in her quest. Instead, the obstacles she encountered made her all the more determined to become the person she knew herself to be: had known since she was a small child.
I would love to share the many details of her adventurous, colorful and at times painful life; but due to time constraints, I would not be able to. What I can tell you is that Mishelle did believe that she was made as God intended: to be an example and a teacher; to show others that life-crushing adversity and soul-deadening pain, can be transformed. How did she do it, you may ask? Not a day has gone by that I have not thought of this question and searched for answers. The conclusions that I came to from the short time that I had with Mishelle was that, with faith, courage, perserverence, commitment, acceptance, love and forgiveness, anything is possible. Anything.
Faith: The unquestionable belief in something, sight unseen. Mishelle had faith in her maker, and she had faith in herself.
Courage: Taking action in the presence of fears. Mishelle had many fears along her journey but she did not let her fears stop her. She made the choice to constantly move forward towards her true authenticity.
Perseverance and Commitment: Facing and overcoming every hurdle, and that nothing but success was an option. To her, success meant living as her true authentic self, regardless of the opinions of others. Her blindness did not stop her, the fear of rejection that she faced did not stop her, her depression did not stop her, her lack of resources did not stop her, her lack of support did not stop her, her lack of employment did not stop her, her lack of access to information did not stop her. Nothing stopped her from being who she knew she was on the inside. She followed her inner knowledge of self.
Love: A strong affection, attachment or devotion to.
Unconditional Love: It takes us where we are at, no changes are required, no expectations. Mishelle did love others unconditionally. She was able to see the potential in everyone she met. Mishelle also learned to love herself. She knew that all love begins with loving and accepting yourself.
Forgiveness: To give up resentment, to stop being angry with. Mishelle did forgive all of those that hurt her and rejected her. She knew that by the letting go of the pain, her healing would begin. She did not want to live with a hardened heart and build walls around herself. Tonight, we celebrate and remember the lives of those who have been taken from us by violence and cruelty. Mishelle did not die from violence, but from complications of COPD, otherwise known as emphysema. However, her life was marked, like those we remember this evening, by creulty, violence, hatred and tragedy. She rarely was free from the fears and the internal pain that so many in the transgender community experience on a daily basis.
Mishelle died on August 12, 2006, a short 4 and a half months after I met her. She died comfortably, with peace in her heart. She knew that she was wholly accepted and loved unconditionally by myself and my family. It was my honor to hold her in my arms as she breathed her last.
I can tell you this, as well: meeting Mishelle, and getting to know her on such a deep, meaningful level, has changed my life. I embrace the lessons that I learned from my dear friend and teacher and strive to apply them in my daily life. I am committed to do my part in paying them forward. My goal is to not only be an ally to the trans community but also to share Mishelle's story with anyone and everyone who will listen. I have co-written a book, entitled "The Color of Sunlight." It is in the final phases of being rewritten by a dear trans woman that I met along this journey. Her name just happens to be Michelle, as well. In this book you will find the details of Mishelle's life and how I, my husband and 2 boys (ages 9 and 12 at the time) came to know her and love her and understand the greatness of her spirit.
It was Mishelle's dream that her experience might open hearts and minds to the true internal landscape of a transgender individual. It has become my dream as well. My intent is to demonstrate that being transgender has nothing to do with external appearance. It is not about the look, not about the dress, not about a life-style choice, not a fetish and certainly not perverse nor a definition of one's sexuality. My dear friend and teacher was convinced that her choice was to transition or die. She chose to live. She chose to educate and she chose to face her adversities. She chose to love and she chose to forgive. She was my teacher. She was my friend. I am and will be forever grateful that she was placed into my life. I had the opportunity to care for her, to learn from her and show her the unconditional love and acceptance she so completely deserved and I am blessed beyond measure for it.
A few of the lessons that I have learned, because of my experience with Mishelle, are really quite simple:
Together, if we each do our part, keep Mishelle in our hearts, and apply the lessons that Mishelle was here to teach, we can make this world a better place.
Thank you!
I am honored to be here tonight and be a part of Montana's 2nd annual Transgender Day of Remembrance. This is such a special day for me. A day on which I can publicly share and celebrate the life of a very special woman that I was given the blessing to meet, care for, learn from, and most importantly, love.My name is Michelle Alexander and I am a Home Health, Hospice Nurse. I have been a Registered Nurse for almost a quarter of a century, the majority of my career being in Home Health and Hospice. In that time, I have had the opportunity to care for hundreds of ill and dying patients, covering a broad spectrum of humanity, including: the rich and the poor; the old and the young; male and female; of numerous nationalities, ethnicities and cultural backgrounds.
In the year 2006, I was blessed with an assignment to care for a patient who touched my heart and touched my life in a way that no other patient had before. Her name was Mishelle, and she was a transgender woman. She was put on our Home Health Service for a seven day course of intravenous antibiotics to treat a respiratory infection. What began as a seven day professional encounter turned into a four and a half month expedition into identity, gender and unconditional acceptance that affected me profoundly then and continues to affect me, even today.
Until the time that I met Mishelle, my experience with the transgender community had been essentially nonexistent. My only encounter was in a well known drag club in Portland that my mother took me to while I was still in Nursing School. Her intention, at that time, was to broaden my horizons, given my small town origins in Butte, Montana. Up to that point, I'd had very little exposure to anything resembling diversity.
Before meeting Mishelle, my mental image of a transgender person was what I saw that night in the drag club; what I now know to be an unrealistic portrait of the transgender community. With a casual, unthinking prejudice, I assumed that Mishelle was a male who chose to dress as a female. I thought of her as a transvestite, a term largely acknowledged today as obsolete. I soon discovered that my prejudices regarding Mishelle were equally obsolete.
Mishelle was utterly unique in my experience in that she was completely blind. Totally blind -no shadows, nothing. But she had a relatively powerful memory of having had sight for the first eighteen months of her life. She thought she may have remembered the colors red and green and images of her family farm. She was fifty-six years old when I met her. I would like all of you to consider for just a brief moment the kind of self awareness it would require to be sure of one's own inner identity despite being blind. She had no one and nothing to compare herself to on an external basis. She only had her own deep, innate sense of self , her inner vision to guide her on her long and painful journey.
To my eternal shame, I confess that for the first three weeks of our relationship, I felt awkward around Mishelle and found myself repeatedly judging her. I remained respectful of her; but judge her, I most certainly did. Secretly, I hoped that she couldn't sense this. I was conflicted; uncomfortable with her and more uncomfortable with myself for my inability to find a measure of acceptance with my patient.My discomfort with Mishelle continued for about three weeks. I was very curious and bursting with questions, but I didn't want to offend her by being nosy. But she must have sensed my curiosity because she broke the ice by telling me:
"If you have the courage to ask, I have the courage to answer."
That was all it took to begin the process of opening my mind and heart to her. Mishelle became my teacher and I gladly became her student. She gave me books to read and videos to watch. With each assignment, the questions multiplied and my curiosity grew by leaps and bounds. She then gave me her journal to read. This was typed on an old fashioned typewriter, not a Braille typewriter, mind you. It covered the years 1988 to 1991, which was the time period of her transition from Michael to Mishelle. It was filled with her deepest emotions and darkest fears. Reading it, I discovered that her daily existence was filled with pain, rejection, fear and moral questions the likes of which I'd never considered.
My heart was now open to her. I too had been blind. But now my eyes were opened and I understood. I could see that being a transsexual was not a choice nor was it a lifestyle. It could only come from within. I finally realized that it was not about the clothing, nor was it about merely being feminine, but was instead wholly concerned with identity: a deep sense of self.
The core of this realization was her blindness. She did not have a visual construct of what a female or a male looked like. She could not look at another woman and think: "That is what I want to look like. That is how I want to dress."
It was at this time that I began crossing professional boundaries with Mishelle, something I had never done in over twenty years of a successful career in nursing. I began visiting her on my off time. I introduced her to my husband and two boys--ages 9 and 12 at the time. We took her under our wing and made her part of our family. She visited our home--with our cheerful assistance--on numerous occasions, most notably for her fifty-seventh birthday. I gave her my cell phone number, my home phone and my email address: all violations of professional conduct. Nevertheless, it felt like the right thing to do and still does.
Mishelle transitioned in Kalispell, Montana, a small town with a population of perhaps seven thousand hard-nosed conservatives. Believe me when I say that her transition was completely and utterly an act of self-determination: raw, unadulterated courage and iron will. Like many of the transgender community, she had no guidance, no assistance and very few resources to draw upon; a situation further complicated by her blindness. She could not find a physician to prescribe her the necessary replacement hormones. Eventually, she did contact a counselor but ironically, he had no knowledge of gender issues, nor any experience working with a transgender client. She had very little support from her friends or family. The employment possibilities for a blind trans woman in Kalispell in the late Eighties were extremely limited. But despite all of the adversities in her path, she did not let them stop her in her quest. Instead, the obstacles she encountered made her all the more determined to become the person she knew herself to be: had known since she was a small child.
I would love to share the many details of her adventurous, colorful and at times painful life; but due to time constraints, I would not be able to. What I can tell you is that Mishelle did believe that she was made as God intended: to be an example and a teacher; to show others that life-crushing adversity and soul-deadening pain, can be transformed. How did she do it, you may ask? Not a day has gone by that I have not thought of this question and searched for answers. The conclusions that I came to from the short time that I had with Mishelle was that, with faith, courage, perserverence, commitment, acceptance, love and forgiveness, anything is possible. Anything.
Faith: The unquestionable belief in something, sight unseen. Mishelle had faith in her maker, and she had faith in herself.
Courage: Taking action in the presence of fears. Mishelle had many fears along her journey but she did not let her fears stop her. She made the choice to constantly move forward towards her true authenticity.
Perseverance and Commitment: Facing and overcoming every hurdle, and that nothing but success was an option. To her, success meant living as her true authentic self, regardless of the opinions of others. Her blindness did not stop her, the fear of rejection that she faced did not stop her, her depression did not stop her, her lack of resources did not stop her, her lack of support did not stop her, her lack of employment did not stop her, her lack of access to information did not stop her. Nothing stopped her from being who she knew she was on the inside. She followed her inner knowledge of self.
Love: A strong affection, attachment or devotion to.
Unconditional Love: It takes us where we are at, no changes are required, no expectations. Mishelle did love others unconditionally. She was able to see the potential in everyone she met. Mishelle also learned to love herself. She knew that all love begins with loving and accepting yourself.
Forgiveness: To give up resentment, to stop being angry with. Mishelle did forgive all of those that hurt her and rejected her. She knew that by the letting go of the pain, her healing would begin. She did not want to live with a hardened heart and build walls around herself. Tonight, we celebrate and remember the lives of those who have been taken from us by violence and cruelty. Mishelle did not die from violence, but from complications of COPD, otherwise known as emphysema. However, her life was marked, like those we remember this evening, by creulty, violence, hatred and tragedy. She rarely was free from the fears and the internal pain that so many in the transgender community experience on a daily basis.
Mishelle died on August 12, 2006, a short 4 and a half months after I met her. She died comfortably, with peace in her heart. She knew that she was wholly accepted and loved unconditionally by myself and my family. It was my honor to hold her in my arms as she breathed her last.
I can tell you this, as well: meeting Mishelle, and getting to know her on such a deep, meaningful level, has changed my life. I embrace the lessons that I learned from my dear friend and teacher and strive to apply them in my daily life. I am committed to do my part in paying them forward. My goal is to not only be an ally to the trans community but also to share Mishelle's story with anyone and everyone who will listen. I have co-written a book, entitled "The Color of Sunlight." It is in the final phases of being rewritten by a dear trans woman that I met along this journey. Her name just happens to be Michelle, as well. In this book you will find the details of Mishelle's life and how I, my husband and 2 boys (ages 9 and 12 at the time) came to know her and love her and understand the greatness of her spirit.
It was Mishelle's dream that her experience might open hearts and minds to the true internal landscape of a transgender individual. It has become my dream as well. My intent is to demonstrate that being transgender has nothing to do with external appearance. It is not about the look, not about the dress, not about a life-style choice, not a fetish and certainly not perverse nor a definition of one's sexuality. My dear friend and teacher was convinced that her choice was to transition or die. She chose to live. She chose to educate and she chose to face her adversities. She chose to love and she chose to forgive. She was my teacher. She was my friend. I am and will be forever grateful that she was placed into my life. I had the opportunity to care for her, to learn from her and show her the unconditional love and acceptance she so completely deserved and I am blessed beyond measure for it.
A few of the lessons that I have learned, because of my experience with Mishelle, are really quite simple:
- Listen to your inner voice. Every answer that you are seeking is within.
- Be authentic. Take off the masks that we wear in order to feel accepted.
- Have an open heart.
- Share yourself. Let people into your inner world to see who you truly are. If a country girl from Butte, Montana can be transformed , there is hope that others can be changed, as well.
- Believe in yourself. Believe in each other.
- Embrace your greatness. Acknowledge and embrace your strengths and your gifts and share them with others.
- Encourage others to embrace their strengths and share their gifts.
- Go shine your light and reach your hand out to one another.
Together, if we each do our part, keep Mishelle in our hearts, and apply the lessons that Mishelle was here to teach, we can make this world a better place.
Thank you!
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