Subscribe
Jobs
Cars
Real Estate
Apts
Classifieds
Shop
Leslie Ryan knows the question you’re about to ask.
That’s because the first thing you might notice about Ryan isn’t her clothes (ankle-high boots, jeans, cardigan) or her hair (long, blond and able to make even the most confident among us sneer with jealousy).
Nope. The first thing you may notice about Leslie Ryan is that she’s tall.
“I had a greeter at Wal-Mart ask if she could ask me a question?” Ryan says. “Before she could ask, I said, ‘I’m 6-foot-4.’ But there are also times I’ll tell people I’m 5 foot, 16 inches and let them think about it.”
Getting lost in a crowd isn’t always easy for Ryan, 56. Standing head and shoulders above most people, she’s easy to notice. And, sometimes, just being noticed can lead to questions, whispers or stares from strangers.
“What I am is not a secret anymore,” she says. “I’ve had to get used to people staring at me.”
Ryan describes herself as a “feminine being,” a transgender person who lives her life as a woman. Like everyone, she shops and works; she meets friends at movies and restaurants. Unlike most people, however, she occasionally fields inappropriate questions like these: Which bathroom do you use? Do you wear women’s underwear? “I’m willing to talk to people,” she says. “But I don’t answer questions like those. When people say they don’t get it, I just tell them, ‘You don’t have to get it.’ ”
Ryan has lived as a woman for 20 years, but she knew she didn’t fit the male stereotype by the time she was 10 years old.
“I screamed it at my mother,” she says. “I told her I was supposed to be a girl. She didn’t know what to do with me, and I realized eventually I wasn’t supposed to share this with people. That is was not supposed to be normal. But it was always in the back of my mind.”
When Ryan began taking hormone supplements – a testosterone blocker, progesterone and estrogen, all initially prescribed by an endocrinologist – her body began to feel like her own.
“It felt like home,” she says. “I was excited about my skin softening, about growing breasts. Transitioning is a long road.
“But it’s not like you have a choice. You’re never at an intersection, wondering which way you should travel. You go down that road because you have no other choice.”
Ryan’s romantic relationships are with men who are interested in women, but she chooses not to undergo sexual reassignment surgery. Over the years, she’s struggled with health issues, including anal/rectal cancer. The operation, she says, is too drastic.
“It also would never identify me as who I am,” she says. “Cosmetic surgery isn’t going to change who I am. And 99.999 percent of the population is never going to see what’s between my legs anyway.”
Ryan works as an entertainer, performing as a female impersonator around the United States. In the past, she has worked as a bartender, an apartment manager and a costume designer. In her experience, work is not hard to find as a transgender person.
“But it’s so varied,” she says. “There are people out there working who blend in. But other people struggle.”
Although she cherishes her friends, Ryan describes living in a midsize Indiana city as “atrocious.”
She has not experienced any violence, she says, but has faced situations where living her life becomes difficult. For instance, she has yet to find a local health club willing to let her join until she has a sex change.
Even shopping can be difficult. A now-defunct local discount store once barred Ryan from using the fitting room, she says.
“They compared me to another woman they wouldn’t let use the changing room – a woman who had open sores all over her arms,” Ryan says. “I couldn’t believe it. You’re comparing me to that? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
In public, Ryan raises her voice an octave and speaks in a soft, Southern accent and is rarely asked about her gender.
“I’m fortunate because I have a very feminine face and great hair,” she says. “Most people don’t recognize me as anything other than a woman. But every once in a while, some redneck will call me a freak.”
If Ryan’s health were better, she would relocate to Indianapolis, where the Indiana Transgender Rights Advocacy Alliance is located, she says.
People in larger cities are more exposed to transgender people, and that has resulted in an accepting attitude, more employment and consumer opportunities for transgender people and a stronger transgender community – all of which are lacking in Fort Wayne, she says.
“In a bigger city, you have a lot more available to you,” Ryan says. “But this is where I live. I make the best of it. I just try to live a normal life.”
