From 'Secret Life' To Public Service

[lightningandsnow]

Theresa Sparks may make history in November.

The executive director of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission is running for a spot on the city's board of supervisors — and if elected, she will become the city's first transgender supervisor.

Today, Sparks, 61, is open about her background — but for many years, she had a secret life.

Sparks grew up a boy outside of Kansas City.

"It was kind of a Beaver Cleaver childhood," Sparks says. "I was always a good student, a Midwestern kid."

Then Sparks began dressing in women's clothes: As a teenager, often venturing out after dark to a neighboring town to shop at Kmart and find an out-of-the-way service station to change — then driving alone for hours wearing the clothes, then returning to the gas station, throwing the clothes away and going home.

Sparks thought marriage and a great relationship might make the urge to dress in women's clothes disappear.

More at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130703278

Yay Theresa! Good for her!