Robbery-Back to Prison

In this undated inmate mug released by the Oregon Department of Corrections shows inmate Linda Patricia Thompson in Salem, Ore. Federal authorities say Thompson, who was recently released from prison in Oregon, robbed a bank in Wyoming on Wednesday, July 27, 2016, only to throw the cash up in the air outside the building and sit down to wait for police.

(Oregon Department of Corrections via AP))

Ten years before Linda Patricia Thompson was arrested in Wyoming on bank robbery charges, the former Oregon prison inmate was prominently featured in a documentary on the struggles of transgender prisoners.

Throughout several interviews in "Cruel and Unusual," Thompson chronicled her time as a transgender woman in the prison system -- her proudest moment being when she castrated herself in an Idaho facility in a bid to gain access to hormonal treatment.

"When I cut the thing off it was like 100,000 tons of hate and animosity towards myself was all of a sudden just lifted off my shoulders," she said in the film. "Man, I could fly. I was light. I was happy. For the first time in my life, I loved myself."

Thompson made headlines this week on reports that she robbed a US Bank in Cheyenne, Wyoming, with the sole purpose of being caught. According to The Associated Press, she walked out of the bank with thousands of dollars in cash, threw some in the air and handed more to passersby before taking a seat and waiting for police to arrive.

"I just robbed the bank, she told one officer, "I want to go back to prison."

She didn't feel safe on the streets, she later told police, after being beaten up in a city park. The assault left skull fractures, Thompson said.

Thompson had moved to Wyoming in June after her release from the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville, where she'd served time for second-degree robbery.

According to Oregon court records, Thompson was assigned male at birth and named Brian Gilbert Thompson. In the documentary, she says she was adopted in Switzerland by Presbyterian missionaries.

Since the documentary's release, transgender people have become much more visible in society. However, a transgender rights advocate told Time magazine last year that it's also a, "Dickensian time, where it's the best of times and it's the worst of times at once."

The story: That transgender people in the U.S. are being murdered at historic rates.

In the documentary, the one-time oil rig driller said she started living as a woman in 1991, carrying two IDs in order to remain employable.

"When I was off tower, I carried my real ID. And that worked for a little while but I couldn't stand myself that way," Thompson said.

But when she presented herself as Linda -- instead of Brian -- Thompson found potential employers giving her the same excuse for turning her down.

"But you're a guy. We can't go having that around here," they told her.

Thompson soon found herself homeless. A friend taught her how to sneak onto freight trains. She says that's one of the places where she felt the most free after coming out.

"I wore a dress on the rails. I didn't wear no heels on the rails 'cause railroad gravel and heels don't mix but I'd wear a dress, I'd wear makeup," she said. "I had my falsies on -- Double-F falsies. I had a good ol' time."

Still, unemployment persisted and so Thompson turned to theft. It was the only way she said she could survive.

"I'm not allowed at a shelter. I'm not allowed at a rescue mission. This is wrong," she said.

Thompson stripped copper and sold aluminum scrap to get by. Eventually, she was caught and sentenced to serve time in Idaho.

By that time, Thompson had been taking black market estrogen. In prison, she was denied a transfer to a women's facility. She was also denied hormones, which she had requested.

In an interview for "Cruel and Unusual," Idaho attorney Bruce Bistline said the facility's warden told Thompson that, "We do not recognize transsexualism as a medical condition. And if I have anything to say about it, we won't."

Soon after she was told the prison wouldn't provide gender reassignment surgery or hormones, Thompson cut off her testicles using a razor blade.

She said the warden told her she had "created quite a sideshow in this place." He said Thompson was only doing it for attention.

She demanded some sort of treatment within a year's time. The warden refused.

That's when Thompson decided to "cut the rest off."

Afterward it was done, Thompson pressed the call button. When a guard appeared to check on her, she dangled her penis over the toilet before dropping it in the water and flushing it.

She was rushed to the hospital, where she spent five days before returning to prison. Thompson was still denied hormones. But she didn't regret cutting herself.

"I wish I had done it 30 years sooner," Thompson said. "I looked at the mirror in the morning and said, 'Linda, I love you.' It was such a wonderful feeling."

Soon after the incident, Thompson filed a lawsuit against the warden and the prison. She was awarded a settlement and moved to a health clinic for transgender prisoners in Vacaville, California.

Upon her release from the facility, she moved to Washington, then Oregon. That's when she committed the robbery that landed her in Coffee Creek.

Thompson is due in court Tuesday in for a detention hearing. She doesn't yet have an attorney.

--Eder Campuzano

503.221.4344

@edercampuzano

ecampuzano@oregonian.com