On Halloween 2000, Rachel Genthner decided she was no longer dressing as a man. The anguish of switching between being a man and being a woman was destroying her body and tearing apart her emotions putting her on the verge of death twice. At 42, she was going to live fully as a woman. Rachel remembers dressing in women’s clothes when she was five years old. The following year, she stashed some of her mother’s cast-off clothes in a cave on the hill behind the family farm where she went daily to change into a dress, regardless of ice, sleet, rain, or snow. Those short hours were the only time she had to see herself as female. Rachel is now a woman, although not everyone accepts it, including two churches and a couple of institutions in town. She is also a ham radio operator, an FAA-certified drone pilot, an Astro-photographer who has built three telescopes, the author of the YouTube channel “Eye in the Sky,” and the founder of the website TransLesbian 2000. Like many in town, Rachel doesn’t know how she will afford oil this winter. She suffers from a myriad of health problems including a deteriorating spine. But nothing keeps her from budgeting for the weekly roses she gives to the bed-bound men and women she learns of and the nurses who care for them. The roses are always yellow, for joy and friendship. Rachel’s reward is their smile.
On Halloween 2000, Rachel Genthner decided she was no longer dressing as a man. The anguish of switching between being a man and being a woman was destroying her body and tearing apart her emotions putting her on the verge of death twice. At 42, she was going to live fully as a woman.
Rachel remembers dressing in women’s clothes when she was five years old. The following year, she stashed some of her mother’s cast-off clothes in a cave on the hill behind the family farm where she went daily to change into a dress, regardless of ice, sleet, rain, or snow. Those short hours were the only time she had to see herself as female.
Rachel is now a woman, although not everyone accepts it, including two churches and a couple of institutions in town. She is also a ham radio operator, an FAA-certified drone pilot, an Astro-photographer who has built three telescopes, the author of the YouTube channel “Eye in the Sky,” and the founder of the website TransLesbian 2000.
Like many in town, Rachel doesn’t know how she will afford oil this winter. She suffers from a myriad of health problems including a deteriorating spine. But nothing keeps her from budgeting for the weekly roses she gives to the bed-bound men and women she learns of and the nurses who care for them. The roses are always yellow, for joy and friendship. Rachel’s reward is their smile.
The way I look at it, God gave me the best gifts He could. He gave me loving, unconditional parents who, as sick and miserable as I often was, were always there for me. My mother almost died giving birth to me. I almost died, too. I weighed only 3.4 pounds. It was a struggle to keep me alive.
Other than not being able to be myself, I had a lovely childhood. I grew up on a farm on Depot Street. When I was six, I learned to do my own laundry. We had an old wringer washing machine. I mowed the lawn with the push mower we had, and it was several acres. And I brushed and fed the dog, put in 12 cords of wood with my mom and dad, weeded the garden, helped harvest the crops, and helped my dad split wood. I kept everything neat and clean. We worked together as a family unit. They were trying to teach me responsibility, how to fend for myself in case anything happened to them because I was an only child. My parents never told me they loved me. But I always knew it.
I hid a lot from them, though. I had no friends. I was always bullied. I heard the word “faggot” a lot. Kids would hit me and knock my books from my arms. I just took the beatings, went home and never told my mother. I couldn’t understand why I felt like a girl instead of a boy. I just knew that I was a girl. There were many times I wanted to tell my mother. And I had chances, too, like the time I was offered a female part in the school play. But I couldn’t. I turned the part down instead. My parents gave everything to me and asked nothing in return. I was the only male who could carry their name. How could I tell them I was really a girl? But I wish I had.
I came out as a woman to my father in 2000. He told me he didn’t understand, but he tolerated it. That kind of hurt but I knew I had to live my truth. I think he thought it was a phase I was going through, but it wasn’t.
After three whole years of fighting with psychologists and the medical system for it, I managed to get hormone therapy. I also found a therapist that worked with transgendered people. I had a lot of repairing to do inside of me from living 42 years as somebody else.
But my body was getting worse. Doctors had to bring me back from death three times in those years. It got to the point where I had internal bleeding, a cancerous tumor, and the weight was dropping off me even though I was eating well. By 2008, my body was totally rejecting itself from my neck to my toes because it was not connected. And there was nothing I could do. I’d been fighting for gender re-assignment surgery for nine years. The doctors didn’t know what to do.
I finally told my dad, told him I’d been trying to borrow $18,000 to have the surgery to save my life. He said, “I’ll get you the money.” That day he went down to the bank, borrowed $18,000, and came back with two checks – one for the anesthesiologist and the other for the hospital.
This will sound weird but right after the surgery, I saw an orb of light all around me. Something had left my body. It was because I was no longer living a lie. I was finally connected to myself.
When I got back and visited my dad to thank him, he said, “I feel so bad you had to hide it all your life. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
I said, “But Dad, you were there. Always. You and Mum are in my heart and soul. You two created me. You’re my existence. Without you two, I wouldn’t be here.”
“I’ve never seen you so calm and peaceful.”
I said, “Dad, that’s because I’ve always been a girl. I just didn’t want to let you down. I knew at five that I was a girl.”
He said, “Why didn’t you say something? Your mother always knew. She was just waiting for you to say something.”
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