He was denied tenure in 1993, as it had come out that he was a transvestite, despite the support of the finance faculty. Jay made the transition to female, and both partners turned up for the 1994 divorce hearing in female clothing. J’Noel had surgery from Dr Eugene Schrang.
She was hired in 1997 to teach finance at Park University, Kansas. She was a popular teacher, and no-one knew much about her past.
In May 1998, at a Founder's Day event she met the 85-year-old Marshall Gardiner, a two-term state-representative who was a donor to the university. After some months of dating, and after J'Noel explained her past during a game of scrabble, they were married in September by a Kansas supreme court judge. A year later Marshall suffered a heart attack on a flight to Baltimore, and J'Noel laid him on the floor of the plane.
He had died intestate, which meant that half of his $2.4 million estate went to his wife. His estranged son Joe Gardiner hired a private detective to investigate J'Noel. He challenged the probate of the will first on the grounds that J’Noel had signed a pre-nuptial agreement, but then on the grounds that Kansas does not recognize marriage between persons born the same sex. The Texas precedent of Christine Littleton was cited. The Kansas Supreme Court ruled that as the current law is silent on transsexuals, they were as at birth, and that the Kansas prohibition on marriage between persons of the same sex applies.
- Devon Spurgeon. “Double Bind: Why a Woman in Missouri is a Man in Kansas, and Why It Matters”. The Wall Street Journal. July 7, 2000. Online at http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/Gardiner.html
- Alex Tresniowski. "Split Heirs". People, August 28, 2000. www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20132137,00.html.
- Kendrick Blackwood. “A Woman Scorned”. The Pitch, Kansas City. Nov 29, 2001. www.pitch.com/2001-11-29/news/a-woman-scorned/1
- “Kansas Supreme Court Says Transsexual Marriage Invalid: Rejects Claim for $2.5 Million” Associated Press. March 15, 2002. www.genderadvocates.org/News/GardinerAP.html.
- William Saletan. "The Trying Game: The mutual frustration of transsexuals and conservatives". Slate, March 20, 2002. www.slate.com/id/2063410.
I remember hearing about this case at the time. The man's son was interviewed on a program and he said that he and his family only met J'Noel once at a family reunion (I believe it was) and they begin talking about how they suspected she was really a man because she walked with a wide gait like a man. Then when his father died they pooled their money, hiring a detective to discover what they suspected all along.
ReplyDeleteI her her as a professir during this time the case was ongoing. News stations, tv updates.. The entire nine! She carried herself with grace.. Very Very Smart!! Almost brilliant! We all knew that she was transgender. It was never discussed and it didnt matter. I learned so much from her. Leaving a legacy, cars are bad investments, buy the cheapest house on the best block and you will always have equity
ReplyDeleteShe never brought her case up.. Before class shed make us do this breathing meditation to relax for about 5 minutes.. I hope she is well. One of the Best professors that I ever had
ReplyDeleteJ'Noel, please contact me. Many of us professors at Park University felt horrible how you were treated. I hope you are doing well and that you are still teaching.
ReplyDeleteMike Fitzmorris
Thank you, Mike.
ReplyDeleteI had left Northeastern University to come to Park because the radical feminist movement promoted employment discrimination against everyone EXCEPT transsexuals; hence, the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination told me I was the only scapegoat for the political left and religious right. To this day, UMass stands by their Prof. Janice Raymond book calling women like me "rapists" in the name of academic freedom when it is unimaginable that a professor would be promoted, tenured, and granted emerita status for writing all lesbians, black men, Muslims, undocumented aliens, etc., are rapists.
The rad fems then saw to it that Sen. Clinton and Democratic party would exclude us in federal legislation via ENDA which could have spared my career from the bigots at Park. I was blindsided that after all my husband and I did for Park University, and after I held my head up to teach the first day of fall classes shortly after he died with protestors at entrance to campus holding signs saying my husband was in hell and I would join him the cowards on the board and administration waited for the press to die down before throwing me to the curb. I refused to go on The Today Show so they empty-chaired me providing entertainment by our blackmailers. Ditto The View. Ditto People Magazine. All photos of me were stolen and I could not even sue to keep them from going public.
At one point I wanted to burn my face so that I might regain some privacy.
[to be continued]
J'Noel Continues:
ReplyDeleteFyi, Kansas, my husband was not gay. We did not have a gay marriage. Even though we were married by Bob Davis of the same KS supr. court that nullified our marriage after he had died and no longer able to resettle us in a friendly state or country, he and his cowardly justices reversed the appellate court that put all of my most private medical history for the world to see. I stood up to our blackmailers trusting in the Constitution and all our legal documents including the marriage witnessed by Pres. Harry Truman's niece. My blackmailers won and my husband, humanity decency and US laws lost. Now I was hated by the religious right, the rad fem corrupted left, AND sexual minorities!
I had to leave the US where I was treated like a turd in everyone's punch bowl to find work. When I have to return to the US, it's now better. I'm tolerated, like a dog turd next to the sidewalk.
When I travel the world, including even more radically religious countries in the Middle East, my only fear is when immigration searches the web upon entry, some true believer can claim my US Passport is fraudulent because my sex is female and the KS supr. court invalidated my legal identity as a human. Otherwise, I am treated with so much more kindness and openness in every other country I've visited and worked in than I am in the US even today, including Kurdistan Iraq and numerous countries in South America.
Times are changing but I will never be compensated for the loss to my career, medical privacy, and, most of all, spending a life sentence alone with the daily pain I suffer every time I wish to remember the last person who loved me and whose nephew (he was actually the son of his brother) destroyed the memory of that great man.
Thanks to Park University, Kansas, religious conservatives, and radical feminists, I had to give up on every being loved again. I am now an elder orphan and no will shed a tear when I die. Hence, I have one regret; one hope; and one joy.
1. I regret that I did not take my brother's 12 gauge shotgun to my favorite quiet spot deep in the woods next to the bayou and blow my brains out at 16 to deprive all of you so much entertainment at my expense;
2. I hope each night when I go to bed that I won't wake up; and,
3. I am joyful every morning to know I have one more day to endure god's children.
As Bill Hicks would say, “I am available for children’s parties.”
smib
Dr. Gardiner,
DeleteI was one of your students at Park University in the early 2000's. I think often of the wisdom you shared with me and the rest of the students in those transformative years. I can't rectify the harm done to you personally, but want you to know I'll forever be grateful to you.
We've not met but have talked on the phone, my name is Paula Ball, I was married to Mike for a short time. I haven't talked to him in many years but heard about what was going on with you & followed for awhile, have thought about you often & wondered how your life was going.
DeleteJ'Noel,
ReplyDeleteYou were a great teacher both for me and for my daughter Jennifer. But you were an even better guest for Super Bowl Parties and Jennifer's wedding. We would love to reconnect and renew your friendship with our family.
Cher Dombrowski
chuckandcher@yahoo.com