HotmailA woman's quest to erase a past that won't die
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A mother's confusion
June Bowman gave birth to Daniel in 1957. There were six children altogether. Six mouths to feed. Six constant challenges. Bowman was poor, and squeezed what she could out of the welfare system. She found work for her family on local farms where they dug up onions and beets and were paid in milk.
She married five times, leaving three of the men after claiming they abused her children. She wonders if this is why her third son started dressing in his sister's clothes, why he told her at 18 he was supposed to be a woman.
"I had never heard of such a thing," Bowman said in a telephone interview from her home in northeast Texas.
She digs for reasons, but they are locked in a part of her memory the 78-year-old rarely visits. Her mind reaches back and then recoils at what it finds.
Catherine did have a hard childhood. She says she was abused by one of her stepfathers when she was 15. And June Bowman recalls the time she beat her "awful mischievous" child with an electric cord — in that moment she could barely contain her anger and it scared her.
Catherine and her mother lived together in southeast Idaho through the 1990s; they fell out in a dispute over the deed to the house, and it was then that her mother revealed in court that Catherine had once been Daniel.
Bowman insists she meant no harm. She says her attorney did it so there would be no surprises in court. But the two have not spoken since.
Catherine, shamed by the revelation, retreated even farther into her own world. She stopped wearing dresses and starved her 5-foot-7-inch frame down to about 105 pounds.
"That's when I think she really just gave up," said her younger brother, Patrick Carlson, the only sibling who still talks to Catherine. "When the courts did what they did, allowed that name to come into play, it's almost like they killed part of her."
Catherine offers no clemency to the mother who never fully accepted Daniel was gone and never truly embraced her as a daughter.
Almost 29 years after Catherine's operation, Bowman is still trying to reconcile her deeply held religious beliefs and her distress over this boy she gave life to and this woman she has so much trouble understanding.
"I do not approve of transsexuals, I believe the way the Lord created us is the way we should stay," Bowman said. "But he was my child and I supported her."
Legal trouble
The old minivan eases down State Highway 201, past acres of frozen farmland and naked trees covered in snow.
On a bitterly cold day in January, Catherine drives 10 miles from her home, crossing a bridge over the Snake River into Oregon, to shop at the Bi-Mart where no one will recognize her.
This Catherine bears no resemblance to the attractive blonde she nearly died to become. This Catherine will not be defined by whether she wears a red blouse or a plaid work shirt.
This is a new Catherine, defiant yet hopeful.
In the last year, she emerged from hiding not as a woman, but as a transgender fighting for the same rights granted to everyone else. She called the local newspaper. She wrote a seven-page letter begging the court to drop the ticket and abolish Daniel for good. This was not about the law, she argued.
During an arraignment hearing, the judge verified Catherine's legal name, promised to treat her with courtesy and respect, and pledged to address her how she wished to be addressed. Then Magistrate Judge A. Lynne Krogh called her "sir" eight times within a span of 10 minutes.
Across Catherine's handwritten plea to the court, the letter asking that Daniel Steven Carlson be stricken from public records, the word "DENIED" is stamped in giant red letters.
She was jailed four times. She failed to appear for court-ordered community service, drove without her license and was held in contempt of court because she was "semi-indignant" to the judge, the county sheriff says.
Finally, a stranger settled the dispute.
Elizabeth Barbour, a bookkeeper in Redwood City, Calif., read about Catherine online. Barbour paid the reduced fine of $510 in October after Catherine spent three days in jail.
"I couldn't imagine how difficult it must be for a transgender person in Idaho," Barbour said.
Fighting her past to have a future
Every snub fuels Catherine's strength of purpose.
In a county without decent public transportation, she still drives without a license, knowing Daniel will emerge again if she is caught. He haunts her, yet he is part of her, a permanent reminder of a time when she felt helpless.
She will do whatever it takes to get rid of him.
She is convinced this is no longer about Catherine. This is about people who take painful steps to embrace who they see in the mirror, only to have society summon their past to glare back at them.
Her short trip to the Bi-Mart behind her, Catherine pulls the van into the trailer park, one of the few places in this world where she feels safe, normal.
She carefully makes her way across the icy road to the solace of her trailer. She can hear Shadow and Tina barking, vying for her attention. She grins and climbs the creaking steps.
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