Philly police officer comes out as transgender cop

[pintobean]

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11041186&BRD=2212&PAG=461&dept_id=465812&rfi=6


From the outside, Heladio Gonzalez was all toughness and swagger. On the inside, he was tormented.

"I was really lost, I was really in limbo for a lot of years. I did my best to make it all go away, but I wasn't very successful. I was pretty good at being a guy, but I couldn't do it any more."

His wife kicked him out of their home last year after he began spending more and more time dressed in women's clothing. Then, on Jan. 6, he delivered a letter to his supervisor announcing his decision to live and work as a woman.

His supervisor read the letter to Gonzalez's co-workers the next morning. "He got very upset, it was like he was reading a death notice," Gonzalez said. "The room got very quiet. It was terrible."


edit:link

[mgarretson]

1. There has been similar situation in OK

There was a similar situation regarding an Oklahoma City Police Department officer a couple years back... The Daily Oklahoman (usually a very narrow-minded and socially conservative paper) did a very interesting (and open-minded) article about it recently... Check the archives at newsok.com and you might be able to find it.

Best,

[fishwax]

3. Paula Sophia

I think that was the name of the officer in Oklahoma City. I can't find the Oklahoman article on line, and a more recent television report from the Oklahoman's partner station requires registration. The original article might be there as well, but would also require registration, I'm sure.

(http://www.newsok.com/cgi-bin/show_article?ID=1186055&TP=getarticle )

There were two pretty amazing things about the article. First was the fact that it even appeared in the Daily Oklahoman, which might be the most conservative paper in the country (and has been named the worst paper in the country by both the American Journalism Review and the Columbia Journalism Review within the last five years). Seeing a pretty sympathetic feature about a transgendered cop above the fold and on all of page 2 of the statewide edition of the Sunday paper was quite a shock.

The second surprising thing was that, according to the article, the police department was pretty accepting. When he announced his intentions about the operation and about the required one year of living as a woman prior to the surgery, her supervisors were very willing to work with her. (Probably because he was a great police officer, having received numerous citations. I think he was even police officer of the year prior to the surgery.) She's still a police officer today.

Anyway, it was a pretty interesting story. A documentary movie about her is supposed to come out this year, but I don't know if it will be available widely or just more locally.

[Kagemusha]

2. He'll probably be asked to quit.

He'll be told his job is to reassure the public and a transvestite can't fulfill that duty.

[BR_Parkway]

4. Why the hell not?

Most wouldn't even realize the gender difference if they didn't know. What a lame comment.