Walt Heyer (1940 - ) manager, counselor, writer, changeback

Walt Heyer, raised in Los Angeles, had a grandmother who loved to dress him as a girl, and an uncle who sexually abused him. He married in 1965 and they had children. His wife knew about his cross-dressing. He became national manager of port operations for American Honda Motor Company, a job that required frequent travel to ports around the US. 

Since childhood his inner woman, who named herself Christal West, had expressed herself in his cross-dressing. Walt moved his family to Sonoma, north of San Francisco so that he would have easy access to the city’s Tenderloin area. At first he went to the drag bars, particularly the Roadrunner, in male guise, until he found a friend who let him change, and then in female guise. 

From there he was given the name of a doctor in Beverly Hills who prescribed female hormones, and then a plastic surgeon for top surgery. At this point his sex life with his wife had ended. In 1981 Heyer obtained the name of gay psychologist Paul Walker from the grapevine. Walker was building a practice catering to transsexuals, and was located on nearby Union Street. Heyer enrolled as a patient. Walker recognized Heyer, having seen his female persona in the Roadrunner. According to Heyer’s account, at the end of the first session Walker diagnosed gender dysphoria, and in the third session gave Heyer a letter recommending trans surgery. This despite the 1979 Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association Standards of Care (of which Walker was the major co-author) requiring two such letters and at least one year of cross-living before surgery. 

Heyer actually went to Trinidad, Colorado and saw Dr Biber. His intention was to have a surgical sex change without telling his boss, his wife or anyone else. The choice of Biber was almost unavoidable he recalled: 

“He was the only one anyone talked about. At the time he was the only one doing the surgery. I had tried to get into UCLA and other places, but everyone had shut down their clinics. There was nothing left. You had one choice.” (Smith p 15) 

Biber read the letter from Walker and asked his usual questions. Heyer gave a check for $7,500, and agreed to the additional hospital fees. He went then to the hospital, felt bad about what he was doing, and returned to Biber’s office with a change of mind. He got a 50% refund. Back home Heyer finally told his wife. Divorce proceedings were started. 

In 1983 Heyer again gained approval from Walker, and again went to Trinidad. Some things had changed. Heyer had started using the name Andrea West. Andrea had had buttocks implants, a nose job and electrolysis. However her resolve had wavered, and she had had her breast implants removed, but later had them replaced. As Walt she was still working for Honda and had been transferred to southern California. Walt’s drinking had become more intense. On return to Trinidad it was Andrea West who signed the papers, but then the name Laura Jenson popped into her head and that is who she became. It was still her intention to continue to work as Walt, and to be Laura out-of-work. She finally told her mother what she was doing. She actually continued to work as Walt. However her attorney maintained that she could not legally continue to work using the name Walt. She procrastinated for several months, until October 1983 when during a business meal and appearing as Walt, she explained that she had already had the surgery. The stunned boss took the issue to the president. Two weeks later she was offered six months severance pay, and she was to disappear and not discuss the termination with anyone.

Laura

Laura Jensen could not find another job, but still had alimony, child support and mortgage to pay. She was still drinking, and started taking cocaine. Most of her friends had disappeared, but one offered to help get her sober and took her to an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting. One AA member offered a garage to sleep in, and others offered odd jobs, but one of the others, also trans, took her to a bar, and she relapsed into alcohol and cocaine. AA again helped her out of that. Her son was the only family member still in contact, although she dressed as a man to meet him. 

Laura’s break came when she was taken in by a Christian family, with a father who was a psychologist with a masters in theology. Laura ended up staying nine months, and returning often over the next twelve years. The family led her to accept Jesus as her savior, and helped her to decide to return to being Walt. Walt obtained a job in an auto body shop owned by a Christian man who also convinced him to start attending Bible classes. However, as Walt later wrote: 

“Laura tormented Walt’s thoughts, enticing him to switch back. I began feeling more and more fragile, slowly crumbling under the weight of wanting relief from the intense emotional pain.” (Smith p 91) 

It was Laura who climbed onto the roof of a restaurant and shouted that she wanted to die. This led to Walt losing his job and a court ordered recovery treatment. It was Laura who was admitted into a residential Women Recovery Association program. She began attending a local church in Foster City, south of San Francisco, where the pastor, while admitting that he had no experience with trans persons, welcomed her and they met regularly. 

Laura took courses to become a counselor for people in drug or alcohol recovery - this at the same time as working a job, and working with her church and with AA. She began noticing differences between her two personas. Laura preferred healthy food; Walt was a junk-food fan. Walt’s voice was lower, while Laura’s was pitched higher. Their handwriting and opinions often were quite different. She remained Laura at school and at work, rather than risking discovery by changing whenever the impulse to do so struck. She attended men’s AA group meetings as Walt, and women’s AA group meetings as Laura. She knew that the major imperative was to stay sober. She did and she graduated in 1989 with an advanced certificate in drug and alcohol studies. Working with her pastor, Laura asked if it would be okay to come to church as Walt. After discussion and prayer it was arranged that the pastor gave a sermon on the theme of a sinner saved by repentance, and then told of Walt’s journey, and then Walt in person was well received.

Walt began working at CityTeam, a non-denominational Christian non-profit in San Jose. But at weekends she was still Laura. Walt was baffled by this as were friends and psychologists. Walt/Laura made a follow-up appointment with Paul Walker who had diagnosed gender dysphoria in 1981. By Heyer’s account, Walker responded to her claim of four years of sobriety, by admitting that he too was in a 12-step program, that he had been addicted to drugs and alcohol after a ski accident, and that he was HIV+. Before he died in 1991, Walker wrote to her that therapists should address alcohol and drug issues before moving on to gender issues. He assured Jensen/Heyer “that I share, as best I can, some of the pain that this mistake has caused you”. Heyer seized onto the word “mistake”. 

Walt’s 12-month contract with CityTeam also ended in 1991, and he applied for a position as a counselor in a psychiatric ward in southern California - but as Laura, as all his papers were in that name. The job required working with severe psychological disorders, including self-mutilation and schizophrenia. The psychiatrist who oversaw her work took note of her as a person, and proposed clinical meetings in his free time. After three weeks he had her consult with another colleague, who used a term to explain Laura’s condition: Dissociative disorder (more popularly known as Multiple-Personality disorder). Laura sought a third and fourth opinion. Both confirmed: Dissociative disorder. A Dissociative disorder specialist used hypnosis, and identified 13-15 separate personalities. Penmanship varied according to which persona was active: Andrea’s signature was tight, small, and slanted left; Laura’s was bold and slanted right. If Walt/Laura had Dissociative disorder, it explained why transition had not solved her problems. 

Laura returned to the San Francisco Bay area to be close to those who supported her best. She restarted at AA, and after an initial hesitancy, was welcomed back to the Foster City church. A new therapist advised that working a job interfered with the required therapy: Laura couch surfed, ran errands for a restaurant in exchange for meals and applied for permanent disability income. Whilst praying with her therapist, she had a religious experience, a vision of Jesus who took her into his arms. For the next few years Walt and Laura alternated. A friend who had taken in Laura some years before was dying of cancer at age 46. Walt became part of her support network, and got to know a woman named Kaycee who was doing the same. They started to meet in addition to supporting the friend. Kaycee accepted him while knowing his past. He had his breast implants finally removed and changed what documents he could. After five years Walt and Kaycee were formally dating. They married in May 1997. The gender switching stopped.

In 2006 Heyer published his first autobiography, Trading My Sorrows, in which he discusses his diagnosis of Dissociative Disorder. In 2008 he set up sexchangeregret.com. At first response was small. However in 2015, when Caitlyn Jenner was front-page news, Heyer was suddenly in demand. “I did forty radio and TV shows in five days”. He appeared at events with Paul McHugh and Ryan T Anderson, both of whom have also written books decrying transsexuality. Heyer endorsed both McHugh’s and Ray Blanchard’s ideas. He repeats conspiracy ideas that George Soros and Barack Obama have respectively financed and appointed activists to push a transgender agender: 

“They want to destroy the moral fabric of society, of the Church, and if you can destroy gender, then you can destroy the basis of man-woman marriage, and then in due time destroy the foundation of society, which is the male-female family and spawning of offspring. So George Soros is totally against God and family.” (Smith p 145) 

In 2018 Heyer edited an anthology of accounts by 30 others who detransitioned.

By Heyer:

• Trading My Sorrows: A True Story of Betrayals, Bad Choices, Love, and the Journey Home.  Xulon Press, 2006. Reissued as A Transgender’s Faith. CreateSpace, 2015.
• Perfected with Love. Xulon Press. 2009.
• Paper Genders: Pulling the Mask Off the Transgender Phenomenon. Make Waves Publishing, 2011.
• Paper Genders: Pulling the Mask Off the Transgender Phenomenon.Make Waves Publishing, 2011.
• Gender, Lies and Suicide: A Whistleblower Speaks out. CreateSpace, 2013.
• Kid Dakota and the Secret at Grandma’s House. CreateSpace, 2015. A novel based on Heyer’s childhood.
• (ed)Trans Life Survivors. Bowker Identifier Services, 2018.
• Articles of Impeachment against Sex Change Surgery. Walter Heyer, 2020.

www.tradingmysorrows.com

www.sexchangeregret.com

https://waltheyer.com

https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/author/walt-heyer/

https://www.dailysignal.com/author/walt-heyer/

https://www.focusonthefamily.com/contributors/walt-heyer/

https://thefederalist.com/author/walt-heyer/

Other:

• "Walt Heyer". TransChristians, February 21, 2010. Online.
• "Walt Heyer?" Maple Centers, October 2, 2011 – January 25, 2012. Online.
• Jeff Schapiro. "Transsexual Returns to Original Gender After Relationship With Christ". Christian Post, January 11, 2012. Online.
• Sheila Jeffreys. Gender Hurts: A feminist analysis of the politics of transgenderism. Routledge, 2014: 73-4.
• Jay Akbar. “The man who's had TWO sex changes: Incredible story of Walt, who became Laura, then REVERSED the operation because he believes surgeons in US and Europe are too quick to operate”. The Daily Mail, 26 January 2015. Online.
• Zinnia Jones. “Walt Heyer and ‘sex change regret’ ”. Gender Analysis, July 31, 2015. Online.
• Ryan T Anderson. When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment. Encounter Books, 2018: 87-91.
• Martin J Smith. Going to Trinidad: A Doctor, a Colorado Town, and Stories from an Unlikely Gender Crossroad BowerHouse, 2021: Passim.

EN.Wikipedia     Conservapedia    Susan’s Place

------------------------

Ephilei at TransChristians wrote in 2010: 

“Walt Heyer was never transgender, yet underwent SRS. Distraught that he was approved for surgery, he hopes to make the psychological community stop SRS.

Walt has a unique circumstance. Walt was eventually diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, archaically called multiple personality disorder. One of his identities happened to be a woman and that identity gradually came into dominance. Not realizing this, he interpreted his feelings as transexual and had SRS. Eventually counselors gave him an accurate diagnosis which provided the proper treatment to eliminate his other false identities. Heyer's situation is undoubtedly tragic.”

Walt Heyer is probably the best known detransitioner or changeback although of course there are many who have done so. Like Alan Finch he set up a webpage and advocated against other people choosing to transition. Some revert to their original gender and admit to a personal mistake. However others go on a crusade to decry that others may decide to do what did not work out for them personally. Back in 2014 I estimated detransition as around 3% based on the data in this encyclopedia. Most other estimates are roughly the same. This Wikipedia article summarizes various studies and concludes: “It is estimated that the number of detransitioners ranges from less than one percent to as many as five percent”. As others have pointed out a 95% success rate makes sex-change surgery one of the most successful branches of medicine.

Heyer claims that 40% of trans persons attempt suicide. He does not differentiate between those who so attempt because they are not able to transition, those who are oppressed by others for being trans and those who actually regret transition.

Heyer is of course right that trans persons with substance abuse/alcoholism should get that sorted out before proceeding with transition. He is also right that those with a Dissociative disorder should get that sorted out first. The persona who becomes the final dominant persona may not want to transition.

There is a divide among trans persons between those who regard therapy as essential and those for whom such a requirement is at best an irritant. I was never offered nor ever wanted professional counselling. I was accepted after one session with Russell Reid. By that time I was working as female, and living so 24/7. I had several years in trans support groups and had talked with, even counselled, many others. I knew what I was doing, and 35 years later have no regrets. Apparently the only trans women that Heyer had met by 1981 were those in the Roadrunner bar. He was on the down-low, and had definitely not done a social transition prior to surgery.

If it actually was as Heyer tells it, Paul Walker did indeed make a serious mistake.

Heyer credits his destiny to grandma's purple dress, father's chastisement and uncle's sexual abuse.  However many children experience worse and become neither trans nor dissociative.   It is not that simple.

Pamela Helen Bonert (1950 - ) military captain, medical officer, counsellor

Bonert was the first openly trans woman in the German military.

After marriage and two daughters, Bonert, in 1999, then a captain in the Luftwaffe, completed surgical transition as Pamela Helen Bonert. The Bundeswehr personnel management transferred her to the medical division, since before 2001, women were permitted in the Bundeswehr only in the medical and musical sections.

Bonhert retired from the Bundeswehr in 2004, although by then procedural instructions for women and for trans persons and their acceptance in the Bundeswehr were being issued.

Bonert had written an autobiography, and it was to be published in 1998. It was to be titled Glücklich (=happy), however Bonert parted from the publisher and book was self published in 2001 with a different title.

Since 2008 Helen has been managing a branch office of the White Ring association which supports victims of crime.

Her entry was deleted from DE.Wikipedia in 2008.

• Pamela Helen Bonert. Der kalifornische Alptraum oder wie ich glücklich wurde: autobiographische Geschichte mit Leitfaden für Betroffene und transidentische Menschen. Pahebo, 2001.
• Laszlo Scheuch. „Ein Opfer hat immer lebenslänglich“. General Anzeiger, 19, Juni 2017. Online.

HomoWiki    Transgender-net.de

--------------------

 Transgender-net.de included an excerpt from Bonert's book, but under the abandoned title of Glücklich.   Bonert wrote to them 15 November 2003, asking that they correct the title.  17 years later they have still not done so.

Der kalifornische Alptraum oder wie ich glücklich wurde is not listed in Amazon.de nor in  Abebooks.de.    I have added it to my article:   (auto)biographies that are almost unobtainable.

Anne Vitale (1938 - 2026) gender therapist

Vitale first qualified as an artist, doing a 1972 BA at the University of California at San Diego followed by a Master of Fine Arts.

After some years of therapy for gender identity issues, she did a psychology PhD at the Professional School for Humanistic Studies, also in San Diego, and transitioned at the same time. Her dissertation was on gender identity issues, and she joined HBIGDA (now WPATH) in 1979. She had surgery in January 1980, moved to San Rafael, California and completed her PhD in 1982. She then studied Existential Psychotherapy with James F. Bugental, 1983-91.

A licensed psychologist in California, Anne Vitale has been at the same clinic in San Rafeal since 1984. Initially she thought that trans persons were too few for her to specialize in gender identity issues, and that she might be unsuitable in that “Countertransferance issues can be very destructive to a vulnerable population”. However there were few other gender therapists, and a San Francisco clinic started making referrals. She made contact with other gender therapists in the San Francisco area and they formed the Bay Area Gender Associates.

Glassgold and Drescher regard Vitale as a follower of Victor Frankl who entwined meaning and authenticity. They write, with regard to Vitale's 1997 paper:

“General authenticity is the clinical focus of Anne Vitale, a trans-identified, American psychologist specializing in existential-humanist psychotherapy. Vitale provides therapeutic support for cross-dressing and gender-divergent clients in such a way as to skillfully combine therapist advocacy and self-empowerment of the client. Specifically, she employs a client-centred, open-minded approach to helping her trans and questioning clients to take responsibility for discovering and actuallizing their own particular form of life meaning and personal power. This supported quest for identity and validation typically involves a dovetailing of genderal integrity, community connection, and existential authenticity.”

Rather than use the DSM diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder, Vitale proposes instead that, where there is a pathology, it is better labelled Gender Deprivation Anxiety Disorder (GEDAD): that it is this deprivation, not a person’s gender identity, that she seeks to treat. She divides gender variant individuals into three categories:

“for discussion purposes only and with no regard to importance or severity of diagnosis”. (p19)

G1. “natal males who have a high degree of cross-sexed gender identity … we can hypothesize that the prenatal androgenization/ defeminization process – if there was any at all – was minimal, leaving the default identity largely intact. Furthermore the female expression of identity of these individuals appears very difficult or impossible for them to conceal.” (p19)

G2. “natal females who almost universally report a lifelong history of rejecting female dress conventions along with conventional girl’s toys and activities. … these individuals typically take full advantage of the social permissiveness allowed women in many Western societies to wear their hair short and dress in loose, gender-neutral clothing.” (p20)

G3. “individuals who look and act unambiguously as society expects them to but privately identity as the opposite gender. We can hypothesize that the pre-natal androgenization/ defeminization process was sufficient enough to establish a workable gender identity that approximated their biological sex but insufficient enough to provide comfort in that gender role. For these female-identified males and male-identified female [see note below] the result is a more complicated and insidious sex/gender discontinuity. From earliest childhood these individuals typically suffer increasingly painful and chronic gender dysphoria. They tend to live secretive lives, often making incrementally stronger attempts to convince themselves and others that they are the gender they were assigned at birth.”(p20)

G1 and G2 are clinically similar. They both “report relatively low levels of anxiety”. If they decide to transition physically, they “accomplish it with relatively little difficulty”.

However

“The cloistered, [G3] natal males, on the other hand, typically only start to realize the seriousness of their dilemma at this age. It is common to hear reports of these individuals increasing the intensity with which they try to rid themselves of the ever-increasing gender-related anxiety. Many individuals paradoxically adopt homophobic, transphobic, and overtly sexist attitudes in the hope that they will override their desires to be female.” (p28)

She regards being trans as a congenital condition and cites Zhou et al, 1995, and Kruijver et al, 2000. As in the quotes above, she assumes that these studies justify an assumption that the prenatal androgenization/ defeminization process is different in G1 and G3 persons.

She regards sex as purely chromosomal and actually says

“The idea that one can ‘change’ from one sex to the other [is] absurd”. (p52)

However with a few cautions she does use hormones as a diagnostic tool.

“It is well documented that cross-sex hormones have a mitigating effect on patients suffering from severe gender dysphoria. The effect is so marked, in fact, that the treatment is used to confirm or reject the GID diagnosis. Fortunately, psychological outcomes precede permanent physiological secondary sex characteristic changes, making it an ideal tool for diagnostic confirmation or contraindication.”(p72)

 All page references are to Vitale’s 2010 book..

• Anne Vitale. “History and resolution of sex/gender integration needs in four male-to-female transsexuals”. PhD thesis, Professional School for Humanistic Studies, 1982.
  
• Anne Vitale. “The Therapist Versus the Client: How the Conflict Started and Some Thoughts on How to Resolve It” in Gianna E. Israel & Donald E. Tarver. Transgender Care: Recommended Guidelines, Practical Information, and Personal Accounts. Temple University Press, 1997.
  
• Anne Vitale. “Sexism in the Male-to-Female Transsexual”. 1997. www.avitale.com/MTFSexism.htm.
  
• Anne Vitale. “The Gender Variant Phenomenon--A Developmental Review”. January 27, 2003. http://www.avitale.com/developmentalreview.htm.
  
• Rachel Ann Heath. The Praeger Handbook of Transsexuality: Changing Gender to Match Mindset. Westport, Conn: Praeger Publishers, 2006: 90.
  
• Judith M. Glassgold & Jack Drescher. Activism and LGBT Psychology. Binghamton, Haworth Medical Press, 2007: 78, 79, 83.
  
• Lin Fraser. “An Interview with Anne Vitale”. The Update: The World Professional Association for Transgender Health, 20,3, Fall 2010. PDF.
  
• Anne M. Vitale. Gendered Self: Further Commentary on the Transsexual Phenomenon. Flyfisher Press/Lulu, 2010.
  
• Kay Brown. “A Clinical View”. On the Science of Changing Sex, February 2014. https://sillyolme.wordpress.com/2014/02/14/a-clinical-view.
  
• Jack Molay.  “Anne Vitale on Crossdreaming in Middle Age”. CrossDreamers, May 19, 2014. www.crossdreamers.com/2014/05/anne-vitale-on-crossdreaming-in-middle.html.
  
• Jack Molay. “On Anne Vitale's theory on testosterone-poisoning in MTF crossdreamers”. Crossdreamer Sidebars, April 2, 2015. http://crossdreamers.blogspot.ca/2015/04/on-anne-vitales-theory-on-testosterone.html.
  
• Kay Brown. “A Passing Privilege ...”. On the Science of Changing Sex, January 1, 2016. https://sillyolme.wordpress.com/2016/01/01/a-passing-privilege.

www.avitale.com      The Gendered Self      CV
_________________________________


A note on the Professional School for Humanistic Studies. It has neither a webpage nor a Wikipedia page. Googling it brings up other PhD theses by other students, but apparently all in the early 1980s, which gives an indication of when it discontinued. Apparently the founder was Harold Greenwald, (1910-1999) obituary, the author of a best-selling 1958 book on female prostitution, a student of Theodor Reik and Albert Ellis, and the developer of Direct Decision Therapy. Vitale says nothing about any of this or whether Direct Decision Therapy has influenced her therapy.

I like the expression Gender Deprivation Anxiety Disorder (GEDAD).  Pity that it is not more widely used.

In Vitale’s 2003 paper, G3 persons are all ‘natal males”, but in her 2010 book, ftm persons are also included.

Obviously there is an approximation of Vitale’s G1/G2 to Blanchard’s HSTS, and of G3 to autogynephilia. The citation notes to her book include both Blanchard and Zucker, and the reading list on her website includes the Clarke Institute’s 1990 book, Clinical Management of Gender Identity Disorder in Children and Adults. However there is no mention of Blanchard in the text, and thus neither acceptance nor rejection of the inevitable notion that her 3 categories are a rewrite of Blanchard’s. An obvious improvement over Blanchard is that Vitale does not align her 3 categories with sexual orientation, nor does she write her G3 as a sexual obsession.

Vitale starts by saying that her three types are “for discussion purposes only and with no regard to importance or severity of diagnosis”, but then claims a differential hormonal underpinning for each type. Some would say that this is equivocation or even reification.

Zhou at al. “A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality” 1995, is a much-criticized small sample(N=6) that claims to find a female-sized BSTc in the brains of dead trans women. Anne Lawrence argues that it is a marker of autogynephilia; Rose White that it is marker of HBS. However the paper argues only for a difference between trans and cis, and does not attempt to differentiate between different types of transsexuals, G1 vs G3, HSTS vs AGP etc. Thus Vitale’s use of it to claim hormonal differences between G1 and G3 is unsupported.

While Heath discusses Vitale’s typology in her 2006 book, there is no entry in the index for it.

I would like to refer to my previous article A rejoinder to Kay Brown’s “What is a Transsexual?”   There I commented:

a) "It is always easier to believe in a theory that matches your own life experience."   Kay Brown feels that she is classic Blanchard HSTS and endorses his typology.   I feel that neither of Blanchard's types match me and I reject it.   Maxine Petersen, as a loyal disciple of Blanchard, must regard herself as an autogynephile, but has never confirmed this.    Anne Vitale, who transitioned at age 42 after years of receiving gender therapy, is presumably a G3, but likewise does not confirm this.

b) I criticized Blanchard and Brown for using the label 'homosexual transsexual' not only for its denial of their current womanhood, but even more so for using it re early transitioners who never spent time as gay men.   "On the other hand there are gay transsexuals, many of whom are not early transitioners.   This is a common pattern among trans men, many of whom spend some years as lesbians, often gaining a female lover who stays with them when they become men.  Similarly many trans women spend some time as gay men on their way to womanhood:  Jennifer North, Poppy Cooper, myself, Roz Kaveney,  Dawn Langley Simmons."  I should also have mentioned Susan Cannon, science historian, who went to Dr Biber at age 55 after decades of sex with men.

Vitale initially regarded G3 as 'natal males' only but after further thought made it gender neutral.   If I am to fit into Vitale's typology I would best fit into G2 which is described as ftm only.  The quote above from p20 does not make this clear, but elsewhere Vitale mentions that many of her G2 persons spent time in the lesbian community.   I would see the concept of G2 being improved by making it gender neutral, and for all alumni of gay and lesbian experience.   Likewise G1 would be for all early transitioners who never join gay or lesbian communities.


 

Kimberly Nixon (1957 - ) activist.

Kimberly felt like a girl from an early age.

“I’ve been who I am since I was born. I am a woman. I was just born wrong.”

She worked briefly as an bush pilot, but started living full-time as female in her mid-twenties, and applied to the Gender Clinic at Vancouver General Hospital in 1986. She completed transition in 1990. Afterwards she continued to apply for jobs as a pilot, but would be rejected when references were taken.

She suffered physical and emotional abuse from a boyfriend and was given support and advice in 1994 by the Battered Women’s Support Services (BWSS). In August 1995, she thought to give back to the community by volunteering at Vancouver Rape Relief (VRR). She did a telephone interview, and then a face-to-face interview, and was invited to join the training session. However at the break she was taken aside by facilitator Danielle Cormier, and her gender was questioned. She was then told “men aren’t allowed here”. Kimberly replied that she was not a man, but admitted that she had been through a transsexual change. She was asked to leave.

Kimberly filed a human rights complaint the next day. Rape Relief offered $500 for hurt feelings, and a personal apology. During the five-year wait while the British Columbia Human Rights Commission worked through its backlog, Kimberly secured the services of barbara findlay, a lawyer with a strong record as a feminist and as an advocate for GLBTT equality. Kimberly commenced volunteer training at BWSS, but later left after disagreeing about the role of trans women in the organization. She became a volunteer at Vancouver’s Woman Against Violence Against Women (WAVAW).

VRR went to the BC Supreme Court asking to throw out the human rights case on the grounds that the province’s 1984 and 1996 human-rights legislation did not extend protection to gender identity, and also because of the five-year wait. In June 2000, the Judge dismissed the argument based on undue delay in that VRR continued to discriminate against women not born as women, and ruled that while the legislation wording only prohibits discrimination based on sex, it cannot be interpreted to exclude someone "merely because that person or group is not readily identifiable as being either male or female”. Ms Nixon is a woman under the BC Vital Statistics Act and is entitled to a human rights complaint.

Also in 2000 barbara findlay was counsel for inmate Synthia Kavanagh, that she was entitled to surgery and transfer to a women’s prison.

Prominent Canadian feminist Judy Rebick, who otherwise has a long record of fighting for progressive causes, agreed to testify for Rape Relief. In 1997 Sheila Jeffreys wrote a paper that transsexualism should be seen as a violation of human rights. In 1999 Margaret O’Hartigan in opposition to the Portland Lesbian Community Project extending its services to those trans women whom Margaret referred to as ‘men’, had written “Post-modernism marches on: Women's space under continued attack”, citing Janice Raymond as part of her argument. Both these articles were added to the Vancouver Rape Relief & Women’s Shelter web site.

In 2002, The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal in the person of Adjudicator Heather MacNaughton found that Nixon had been discriminated against, in that volunteering is equivalent to employment. Rape Relief was ordered to pay Ms Nixon $7,500, the highest award yet made by the tribunal, and not to discriminate against any transsexual woman, but declined to order Rape Relief to hold a “unlearning transphobia” workshop.

Vancouver VRR appealed to the Supreme Court of BC, arguing that Kimberly Nixon is immediately recognizable as a former man and as such would make some clients uncomfortable.  Also that she is not a real woman in that she does not have a history of living as a girl and then as a woman. VRR is entitled under BC law as a non-profit assisting a marginalized group to be a woman-only organization (a policy which Kimberly agrees with). The Supreme Court ruled in favour of VRR. Chief Justice Edwards noted in his judgement:

“By reason of Rape Relief's self-definition, perhaps reflected in its small number of members, exclusion from its programs is quite evidently exclusion from a backwater, not from the mainstream of the economic, social and cultural life of the province. It may be an important backwater to its members and to Ms. Nixon, but that is a subjective assessment.”.

Kimberly appealed to the BC Court of Appeal which issued a ruling in December 2005 which upheld Edwards’ ruling. Nevertheless it affirmed that Nixon is a woman, and that Rape Relief had discriminated against her.

In February 2007 the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear the case without giving any reasons, as it does in 89% of cases. It also awarded costs, estimated to be $100,000, to Rape Relief.

*Not Kimberley Nixon, the British actress.

• Margaret Deirdre O’Hartigan. “Post-modernism marches on: Women's space under continued attack”. Off Our Backs. Aug-Sept 1999. Online at: www.rapereliefshelter.bc.ca/learn/resources/post-modernism-marches-womens-space-under-continued-attack.
• Sheila Jeffreys. “Transgender Activism: A Lesbian Feminist Perspective”. Journal of Lesbian Studies, 1, 3/4, 1997. Featured at: Vancouver Rape Relief & Women’s Shelter. www.rapereliefshelter.bc.ca/learn/resources/transgender-activism-lesbian-feminist-perspective.
• Wendy McLellan. "Sex change does not limit person's rights, court finds: Code covers the transgendered, B.C. judge rules". National Post, Jun 9, 2000.
• Stephanie Nolen. “Fighting to do a woman’s work”. The Globe and Mail, Dec 9, 2000.
• Viviane K. Namaste & Georgia Sitara. “Inclusive Pedagogy in the Women’s Studies Classroom: Teaching the Kimberly Nixon Case”. In Viviane Namaste. Sex Change, Social Change: Reflections on Identity, Institutions, and Imperialism. Toronto: Women's Press, 2005: chp 5.
• Andy. "Kimberly Nixon". Rabble.ca, Jan 15, 2006. http://rabble.ca/babble/feminism/kimberly-nixon.
• Rory Leishman. Against Judicial Activism: The Decline of Freedom and Democracy in Canada. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006: 19-21,33-4, 40-7.
• Keith Frazer. "Top court won't hear gender appeal case: End of legal road for woman born a man". The Province, Feb 2, 2007.
• Robin Perelle. “Rape Relief wins: Supreme Court refuses to hear trans woman's appeal”. Xtra, Feb 14, 2007. www.xtra.ca/public/Vancouver/Rape_Relief_wins-2656.aspx.
• Christopher A. Shelley. Transpeople: Repudiation, Trauma, Healing. University of Toronto Press, 2008: 73, 85-6, 145-9.
• Patricia Elliot. Debates in Transgender, Queer, and Feminist Theory: Contested Sites. Farnham: Ashgate Pub, 2010: 12, 19-31.
• “Chronology of events in Kimberly Nixon vs Vancouver Rape Relief Society”. Vancouver Rape Relief & Women’s Shelter. www.rapereliefshelter.bc.ca/learn/resources/chronology-events-kimberly-nixon-vs-vancouver-rape-relief-society.

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The 2002 order from Adjudicator MacNaughton that the VRR not discriminate against any transsexual woman would oblige them to accept non-op and pre-op trans woman, so to that extent one can see why they appealed.  However VVR still declines to accept all women with known transsexual history.

The O’Hartigan and Jeffreys papers are still found on the VRR web site.

The VRR Chronology neglects to mention that the VRR went to court to argue that trans persons are not covered under the province’s human rights laws.  Nor does it mention that it added the confrontational O’Hartigan and Jeffreys papers.

The Wikipedia article on Judy Rebik fails to mention that she testified for VRR.

The Xtra article, 2007, argues that most Canadian women’s centres became trans inclusive because of Nixon v. Vancouver Rape Relief.  However the Globe article by Nolen, 2000, says that that was already the case at that time.

It is ironic that Nixon won a ruling from a female Adjudicator, and the feminist VRR won its rulings from male judges.

Nixon was read; she wasn’t tattled on.  VRR did raise the issue of her being read at one point, but the legal arguments did not pivot around it.  This is an issue that most of us don’t like to examine.  Kimberly went to VRR initially in stealth, and was read.   She later went to WAVAW known as a trans woman and was accepted.  What would be the protocol if a VRR rape victim being counselled did realize that the counsellor was trans and reacted badly to that?

barbara findlay is a noble activist who continued the fight long after Nixon’s legal aid had run out.