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damnedifIknow

(3,183 posts)
Thu Oct 8, 2015, 02:07 PM Oct 2015

Oregon legislator hadn't met a transgender person — until now

Last month, after Rep. Carl Wilson announced he will introduce a bill to ban transgender teenagers from having sex reassignment surgery, the Grants Pass legislator admitted he had not yet met a transgender person.

Elaine Walquist decided to be his first.

A 64-year-old retired teacher, Walquist spent most of her adult life living in "stealth" after having the surgery in 1980. Last week, in an hour-long meeting both parties called friendly, Walquist experienced something new, too: It was her first time telling a stranger her story.

*After her surgery, Walquist went to college and became a public high school language and history teacher. After that, she felt she never could tell people the whole of her life.

"In Michigan, I could not tell me story at all," Walquist said. "It would have cost me my job."

Walquist said she had a good, if not an easy, life: She was a nationally ranked table tennis player who trained at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. She became foreign language department chair at her school.

When she retired in 2012, she decided to start over. Walquist moved to Portland last year, intending to become more involved in advocating for less fortunate LGBT people.

She saw a good opportunity, she said, when she read about Wilson's plan to propose legislation banning teenagers from using the Oregon Health Plan to pay for sex reassignment surgery.

*"Being a teacher, I wanted to educate him," she said. "I knew I wasn't going to change his mind. But I wanted him to meet someone who was a good representative for the trans community."

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/10/representative_carl_wilson_tra.html

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