Tagged: Defining Fairness

Lucian Grey's mother was raised in an all-male household, and she, "didn't know what to with having a girl," he explains. "Femininity in general was not her experience. So she just did what she knew how to do."

She raised Lucian as a boy, although he was born biologically female. He played with G.I. Joes and loved baseball, soccer, and ice hockey. Lucian grew up feeling like his body didn't match who he was, but it wasn't until high school that he really had to confront the disparity. "I'd always kind of identified as male, and then we get to the point where there's the locker room situation, and 'Okay, let's go change. Girls' bathroom is over there,' and I'm like, 'Wait, what?'"

When Amanda Stahl first realized she was falling in love with another woman, she wanted to write about it in her journal—not an unusual way to process feelings of self-discovery. But for Amanda, just the act of journaling meant automatically coming out.

"I need other people to help me take care of myself," she explains. "That morning I had my caregiver sitting down and writing in my journal from the night before, and I was like, I really want to write this down because it's really important." She told her caregiver and the journal entry was recorded.

The thought of growing up gay in rural Eastern Kentucky would make many Louisvillians cringe. But how much of that reaction is rooted in stereotypes we hold about rural Kentucky? Whit Forrester spent some of his childhood in Leburn, Kentucky—a town in Knott County, with a population of around eight hundred people. Whit says when people hear he's from Appalachia, they think, "barefoot, pregnant, in a trailer, and you know how to change a propane tank."

Whit Forrester spoke with WFPL’s Phillip M. Bailey and Laura Ellis about growing up gay in Appalachia.

Rebecca Grant was a Staff Sergeant in the Army National Guard. Twelve years into her military career, a fellow soldier found and circulated a picture of her wearing a dress. The Army took issue with the photo because she had enlisted and had been serving as male—her biological sex.

Rebecca is now the president of Sienna, a transgender social, educational and support group, and has come out as transgendered and a lesbian. But embracing her identity hasn't been without challenges. "Right now, I'm able to still marry, let's say, my partner, a female, legally," she explains. "But once I have my sex change, I would not have that opportunity. And that seems completely wrong."