Transgender Little 500 rider returns to break 'silence'

Friends and members of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender community gathered in red T-shirts yesterday for a walk across campus commemorating the National Day of Silence.\nBeginning at 5 p.m. near the Showalter Fountain and taking a path along major campus traffic routes, the procession of about 50 people ended at the Sample Gates and returned to Dunn Meadow to listen to several who spoke about their sexuality, including the transgender former IU student and Little 500 rider Deane Lahre.\nLahre, who once used the name Robert Dean Lahre, now uses a derivative of her middle name as she transitions from male to female. When she was an IU student, she qualified to ride for her team, Magee-Foster, in the annual bicycle race in both 1973 and '74. Her team finished eighth the second time around. \nBefore she moved to Bloomington, a city she calls "trans-friendly," she lived a seemingly normal life. She had an unhappy 13-year marriage that produced three children -- two boys and a girl. She worked 21 years as a pit trader -- 18 in Chicago, three in Kansas City. She said the reason the marriage failed was directly tied with her internal struggle searching for her gender.\n"(My wife and I) were in trouble for over half of it," she said. "(The male-to-female transgender community) don't function well as men -- sex was infrequent, and not high on my list. That tends to put a lot of stress in a relationship," she said during the stretch of the walk up North Jordan Avenue.\nBut she said the trouble started before then. She said she knew something "was up" when she was 8 years old growing up with her family in Windfall, Ind. \n"It's a struggle 24/7," she said. "You've got these feelings, and you don't know what to do about it because you think you're all alone. And no one talks about it, especially (in the 1970s), and in Indiana."\nWhen she began her transition four years ago in 2001, she said her parents has trouble accepting the change. \n"But they knew I've struggled with this ... even before my teen years, they knew," she said.\nFor those of the GLBT community, the teenage years can be traumatic and plagued with various mental health issues, among them depression and suicide. According to the University of New Hampshire's Health Center, a growing body of research indicates that GLBT youth attempt suicide at a rate two to three times higher than those of heterosexuals. But it seems that in the case of transgender youth, the suicide attempt rate is more than 50 percent. Lahre escaped becoming part of that statistic, but not without problems. \nShe said even though she never tried to kill herself, the thoughts were there and so was the depression. She said she was always in counseling and noted that "over half of us don't see their 30th birthday."\nDuring the sunlit procession through campus, many drivers passing by honked their horns and waved, an offering of support to those brandishing T-shirts reading "Gay? Okay with me." But it was the reaction of some that made it apparent why a day honoring those who have been silenced was important.\nDuring part of the walk down 10th Street, a high school student riding on Monroe County Community School Corporation bus number 45 shouted, "Hey, those guys are gay." On Woodlawn Avenue, passengers in a grey Ford Mustang shouted "Fags." A heckler driving north on Indiana Avenue as GLBT members spoke at a microphone in Dunn Meadow shouted obscenities a third time.\nGLBT Student Support Services Coordinator Doug Bauder was at the microphone and highlighted the final incident saying it was the very reason for the importance of the National Day of Silence. \nIU student and GLBT community member Rynn Hagen attended the Dunn Meadow segment of the procession. \n"It's a way for the straight community to show support for those who have been silenced for so long," she said. And now it's a time when people don't need to be silenced. Even here on the IU campus there's so much discrimination against the GLBT community."\nHagen also said she brought her son because she thought it was important for him to experience growing up in an all-inclusive community.\nLahre said she heard all of negative feedback, but ignored it saying of the hecklers, "I guess ignorance is bliss." She said she didn't really pay much attention to those motorists driving by staring at the procession.\n"I'm indifferent now as to what people think," Lahre said. "I have good hair days and bad hair days just like any other girl on campus." \n-- Contact Staff Writer Brandon S Morley at bmorley@indiana.edu.