Transgender in Tennessee: Heather O'Malley's story

Heather O'Malley, a 46-year-old woman from Murfreesboro, served for the 101st Airborne in Ft. Campbell and tried to kill herself before transitioning. She shares her transgender story in her own words.

I realized that something was off when I was around 5 or 6, finally figuring out what it was around 7. I was getting ready to tell my mother when my dad got a new job in the Army. She said, "If you do anything weird then your father could lose his job." I knew what weird she was talking about and so I tried to bury it. Puberty was hard and I began to feel a bit … crazy, I guess is the best way to say it, things just felt off. I couldn't take it anymore when I was around 18 and was getting ready to tell her again when my dad got promoted again. Same speech.

This time I buried things as best I could, but I took my pain and frustration out on the women around me, basically being a total (jerk). For most of my life I had tried to be a man as best I could, doing all the things I could picture that made a "real man." I have four black belts, joined a fraternity, joined the Army, slept around, all sorts of things to prove I was a man. It never worked, and those feelings never went away.

While I was serving with the 101st in Clarksville I had had enough. One night early in 2001, I had a loaded 9mm and I was getting drunk. I was going to take my life and end all the pain and confusion. My wife came in, saw what was going on and started yelling at me. She pretty much saved my life with that. So I realized that it was either deal with this or die, and I wanted to live. Despite the divorce, my therapy proceeded and it was clear that this wasn't a phase or something odd, it was the real me trying to get out. I started hormone replacement therapy a year later.

That was a real eye opener. A few weeks into the start of it I sort of froze as I realized that the fog I had been living in since puberty started had mostly lifted. I could think clearly for the first time in decades. It was rather scary honestly. ...

I am on my third marriage and my wife and I are very happy. She accepted me for who I am and that made becoming myself very easy. I could just be and all was well. My stepdaughter loves me, and I adore her. They are very much the best things in my life. I have a fairly larger community of friends and that is very different from what my life was like before. Last year I won a Jim Collin's Foundation grant that covered my final surgery. This year, on St. Patrick's Day, the last bit of this quest was over. I feel whole, complete, and right with the world.

Sure there are still issues in my life. I am an unemployed, disabled Veteran who is dealing with a number of medical issues thanks to my service. I write and have a book published, but it is not a big money making thing. My parents and siblings have a lot of trouble dealing with this. Despite my name having been changed for over a decade, my mother keeps saying the wrong name. To them, I am the family disgrace and so they lie about me and my life to make themselves feel better. But despite all this, I am happy. I have love, a beautiful and wonderful daughter, loads of friends, and an interesting life, far removed from that painful moment with the handgun when I wanted to die.