Tessa is a soft-spoken, intelligent, thirtysomething individual who identifies as "genderqueer." "I don't really like the binary gender system," she said, sitting in the Omaha-area apartment she shares with two transgender women.

Tessa prefers female pronouns and says that she identifies as female in terms of her body image. She looks a little like a punk rocker, and many people mistake her for a butch lesbian, which is fine with her because it elicits fewer questions.

She has mainly worked lower-wage jobs and often finds that co-workers and supervisors are disrespectful. At a call-center job, a supervisor outed her to her co-workers, most of whom did not know she was transgender. Tessa said, "They'll say that they're doing it for our protection, but they'll also say it like they're exposing a fake."

Workplace stories like Tessa's are one of the reasons Omaha City Councilman Ben Gray authored an LGBT nondiscrimination ordinance. In 2010 the city council voted it down, but in March 2012, he tried again and it passed. The state nondiscrimination laws have yet to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

Gray said that it was not a priority nor was it "on the radar" when he took office in 2009. It was a former colleague from Gray's days as a television reporter who suggested that the legislation was needed. "I wanted to do something I thought would pass, but I also wanted to do something that could stand the test of a constitutional challenge," Gray said. "The ordinance that I think we passed was a really good ordinance because it did protect the LGBT community from discrimination in the workplace and discrimination in public accommodations."

Sallans, Mytty, and Bacon are happy about the Omaha bill in part because it included the "T." "As [a bill] gets close to getting passed, usually they'll drop gender identity because of fear," said Sallans.

"I had compromised on a couple of things, but you know, the part about including the 'T' part of the LGBT community, I was not going to compromise on that," said Gray.

Bacon mentions outrage in the transgender community on a national level when, in 2007, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) promised to keep transgender people included in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), but several weeks later compromised on that part of the legislation. Bacon was on the the board of the National Center for Transgender Equality in those days. She said she was so angry about the betrayal that she sat with her back to President Joe Solmonese as he spoke at the HRC national dinner.

"Between the time that my bill failed the first time and my introduction of it the second time, I just couldn't live with myself knowing that three young people in my district committed suicide in that time frame, and all of them were gay," Gray explained. "We ought not live in a country where anybody feels like that."

When the Omaha legislation was being debated, most of the opposition came from religious organizations. Gray, who is African-American and represents a majority African-American district with high poverty, said, "The majority of people who were opposed to my bill were leaders of church organizations in my district."

Gray, who worked as a television reporter and producer for more than 30 years before pursuing public office, covered the Brandon Teena story for the Omaha ABC affiliate. He calls Brandon's death a "contributing factor" in the progress we've made as a country. While he was opposed by some church leaders in passing his ordinance in 2012, he said that just as many clergy came out in support of the legislation.

On the Sunday morning before Christmas, Lynne and Meredith Bacon were clearly an integral part of the parish at All Saints Episcopal. Lynne has been a deacon in the church for 20 years and sings in the choir. Meredith is deeply involved in religious education. After mass, she and a fellow parishioner discussed their bell choir rehearsals.

A few days later, Tessa arrived just in time for the Christmas Eve service at the Second Unitarian Church of Omaha. She sidled up to an old friend and settled in for the service. She doesn't attend regularly, but a congregant remembered her from the days when she helped out with the transgender youth group. The church provides a safe space for teens and young adults to meet and get support; this is a lifeline that did not exist for Brandon 20 years ago.

Reflecting on why Brandon's death would be less likely to happen today in Richardson County — or elsewhere — Houser said, "It was the wrong two guys, the wrong person, the wrong cops, you know, just a confluence of events."

That unlikely "confluence of events" resonated louder than anyone might have anticipated 20 years ago. These days people may remember Boys Don't Cry more than his name, but Brandon Teena — an unlucky kid in a sleepy corner of Nebraska — unintentionally paved the way for others in the LGBT community by just being himself.