Courtney Crowder

ccrowder@dmreg.com

Jack Schuler studied his face in his bathroom mirror with the detailed eye of a jeweler inspecting a rare gem. His gaze darted from his hairline to his upper lip to his chin as he pulled the skin along his jaw line taut and dragged a finger across.

“I know I don’t have much hair yet, but I want to make shaving a part of my everyday routine,” the 32-year-old said as he lathered up his face and pulled out a straight razor. “I used to watch my dad shave as a kid.”

He paused to adjust his grip on the blade: “It was probably a sign that when I was younger, I was way more interested in watching my dad shave and learning how he did it than in anything my mom did.”

Finishing, Schuler splashed on Brut, a cologne with the tagline, “The essence of man,” and placed the angular bottle next to a rounded container of mint green “cotton blossom” lotion, which smelled like a just-bloomed flower bed.

In a small way, this ointment dichotomy — one stereotypically female next to the other quintessentially male — is emblematic of how Schuler has lived most of his life. Born a girl, in a body that never felt quite right, Schuler recently embraced the male identity that he says always hovered just below his epidermis.

After coming out as transgender in April, he’s “finally living his truth” and, in the process, he has become Des Moines Public Schools' first transgender teacher.

Schuler is one of many transgender Iowans stepping forward to tell their stories as the national debate over transgender rights shines a spotlight on the community. But hand in hand with positive visibility comes a “moment of crisis” in which transgender people are facing “increasing harassment, discrimination and violence,” said Kris Hayashi, executive director of the California-based Transgender Law Center.

“The majority of transgender people … fight to survive on a daily basis,” Hayashi said.

The Family Leader, an Iowa-based Christian conservative organization, doesn't discount that life may be hard for transgender individuals but believes "society must order its laws based on objective truth, such as biological sex," said communications director Drew Zahn.

"Substituting subjective self-identification for truth is a dangerous experiment that leads to confusion," he said. "How can our legislators protect boys and girls if they don't know which is which?"

Gender identity, or the gender with which a person identifies, has been included in the Iowa Civil Rights Act for almost a decade, meaning transgender Iowans have legal protections against discrimination in education, employment, housing and public accommodations.

But advocates say more should be done to advance their rights. While the safeguard of the civil rights act is “very important,” said Demoya Gordon, a transgender rights project attorney with the national advocacy group Lambda Legal, “it doesn’t mean transgender people in Iowa aren’t subject to discriminatory treatment on a regular basis.”

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In interviews with 22 transgender and gender-nonconforming Iowans, 21 told The Des Moines Register they have experienced some form of discrimination or harassment based on their gender identity. And the Iowa Civil Rights Commission — the state agency charged with investigating discrimination claims — has seen complaints filed under gender identity jump from four in 2008 to 49 so far this year, an increase advocates say is due to more transgender people speaking out. Complaints may include allegations of harassment, a failure to hire, or refusal to use the correct name or pronouns, said Kristin H. Johnson, executive director of the commission.

The transgender population is estimated to be about 0.3 percent of the total population, or about 964,000 people nationally and 9,300 in Iowa, according to The Williams Institute, a think tank at UCLA's law school.

“I am wary all the time,” said Renee Thomas, 58. “I could pass 1,000 people and 900 would see exactly what they expect to see (a woman). Maybe 99 would recognize me as transgender. Some of those people would scowl, and a handful may disparage me with a comment. But one person in 1,000 would choose to go off on me violently. That is the person I have to watch over my shoulder for.”

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As an English teacher at Lincoln High School, Schuler is acutely aware he has created a new outlet for kids in the district. Now, anyone who has questions about gender can discuss it with someone who has confronted those issues firsthand, said student Sierra Motte, 18.

“I had a student walk up to me, someone who is normally very quiet and keeps to himself,” said Lincoln teacher Jilann Severson. “He asked me where the party celebrating Mr. Schuler’s transition was and asked if he could come, and I said sure. He started to walk away, and I asked him why he was interested.

“He turned and said, ‘My brother is trans. I know how important it is to have people there for you.’ ”

‘Maybe it will never happen to me’

Born a girl named Elyse, Schuler was a late developer as a teen, a fact he rejoiced in.

“I was the last female in my class to start developing breasts or get a period, and I honestly thought, ‘Maybe it will never happen to me,’ ” he said. “Menstruation felt so foreign to me. It was like taking a boy, who knows he is a boy, and saying he would have a period. It’s like, ‘Uh, no.’ ”

Today, many kids turn to the internet to find a community of like-minded people. But Schuler, who grew up in rural Illinois, didn’t have easy access to answers about why his body didn’t match his mind.

Attending a small Catholic high school, he forced himself to conform to gender stereotypes in the face of peer pressure. He tried to have the perfect makeup, wear the cutest skirts and keep his long hair in vogue, even though none of it ever felt right.

“It was like wearing a mask every day,” he recalled. “I knew what was underneath, but I wasn’t ready to accept it.”

At Briar Cliff University in Sioux City, he found a group of friends who allowed him to act on his evolving identity. He started shopping exclusively in the men’s section and began to explore his sexuality, going from bisexual to lesbian and back to bisexual.

“I felt safe to explore gender, but I was still figuring out what my feelings meant and who, exactly, I was," Schuler said.

After college, he stumbled through a series of bad jobs until he decided to join the Marines, following in his father’s footsteps. While enlisted, he married a man to escape swirling rumors of his homosexuality and to not fall afoul of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Schuler and his husband have since divorced but remain good friends, he said.

Looking back, Schuler can see he was trying on all these different labels — punk, lesbian, theater kid, Marine — in an attempt to tamp down the one that gnawed at him most: “man."

Schuler's years of questioning and exploring his gender identity typify what many transgender people experience, but each person’s coming-out story is different, influenced by their environment, family and a uniquely personal path to self-acceptance.

Ashley Super’s journey started in a Fort Madison library.

Now 63 and living in Cedar Rapids, Super began her emotional transition in the early 1990s, when she was looking through the card catalog and found a mysterious note among books about “cross-dressing." It read “Iowa Artistry” and listed a post office box. At that time, it was a group for men who liked to dress as women. Eventually, it would be a space for Super to embrace her mental and physical transition and to start her life as a woman.

For those who believe they must keep their gender identity buried, each day can be a “never-ending loop of misery,” said Jeorgia Robison, 55, of Marion, who hid her gender identity for more than 50 years.

“Hiding who you are can split your soul in half,” she said.

On the other hand, finally embracing your true self can restore your spirit, said Rachael Ferraro, 58, of Dubuque.

“I remember everything about the day I got my name changed, down to what shirt I was wearing — everything,” Ferraro said. “The judge looked at my papers and went through some things and said, 'Good luck with your new life, Ms. Ferraro.’ ”

“I made it to a bench outside before I just cried and cried,” she said. “He didn’t know how powerful those words were: 'Ms. Ferraro.' ”

‘I am a man’

Schuler’s experience has always felt less like surviving daily despair in one gender and more like dipping his toes into the pool of another, he said.

After leaving the Marines, Schuler went back to school to study education and performed as a drag king — a woman who impersonates a man for entertainment — at night. Soon, the description "male" began to feel more like an “everyday thing” and less like a performance.

All those years culminated in a moment last summer when Schuler was driving to Des Moines to interview for his first full-time teaching position. On Interstate 80, alone with stretches of farmland as far as he could see, he decided to try on a new status.

“I said out loud, ‘I am androgynous,’ and that was OK, but not right,” Schuler remembered. “Then I tried to say, ‘I am a woman,’ but I couldn’t even get those words out. Then, finally, I said, ‘I am a man,’ and it felt like the most natural thing I have ever said. It just … just felt really good.”

He was ready to cannonball into that other gender’s pool.

This early phase of transition has been fairly easy, Schuler said, mostly because he was accepted by his family and supported by his place of work.

"We welcome the diversity of experiences and perspectives brought by our students and staff," said Phil Roeder, communications director at Des Moines schools. Jack "is also a reminder … there are real people behind this issue."

Unlike Schuler, many transgender people haven't found that level of approval personally and professionally, the Register discovered. And many in the community also say they fear that neither the government nor law enforcement offers enough protection to ensure their safety.

National and local advocates point to the incarceration of Meagan Taylor last summer to show that Iowa has a ways to go to make sure the protections of state law are applied to many transgender people’s reality.

Taylor was traveling through Des Moines in July with a friend when they stopped for the night at the West Des Moines Drury Inn. After they checked in and went to their room, a hotel manager called the police. She described their dress as “a little bit over the top” and said she wanted to make sure “they’re not hookers,” according to a 911 call. Taylor was arrested and charged with possession of prescription drugs without a prescription and malicious prosecution, a charge generated after she gave a fake name, West Des Moines police said. She spent eight days in segregation before supporters raised enough money for her bond. The charges against her have since been dropped.

The ACLU of Iowa filed a complaint with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission on Taylor’s behalf, but it declined to discuss the case further.

Advocates also noted that Iowa's hate crimes laws lack gender identity protections, and the administrative code governing Medicaid excludes some transgender-related health care, including sex-reassignment surgery, penile implants and any surgery “which is performed primarily for psychological purposes … but which does not correct or materially improve the bodily functions."

The Family Leader wants to keep the Medicaid exclusions and opposes adding gender identity to the hate crimes law. The organization also “does not support the addition of gender identity to the (Iowa Civil Rights Act) and would like to see it removed,” Zahn said.

“Gender identity is ambiguous, limitless, undefinable and changeable,” he said. “Creating protected classes based on a person’s feelings creates confusion in all areas and undermines other protections.”

‘We are in good hands’

On a recent Friday, Beyoncé’s “Formation” pounded as students gathered to dance and laugh at Schuler’s after-school coming-out party. Late afternoon light bounced off blue balloons and streamers, and fresh watermelon and frosted brownies glistened near the window.

Schuler stood under an “It’s a Boy!” banner hung by students to acknowledge his transition. Some kids wiped away tears as they spoke with Schuler, so moved that he would share this most intimate confidence with them and their peers.

“Everyone is just having fun, and that is what this is about,” Schuler said. “There are enough problems in this world. I just want to be treated like everyone else, and for the world to move on."

It’s a sentiment felt by many transgender people, Hayashi said. In a way, this moment of visibility is necessary so they can go back to living their everyday lives.

After decades of being out as transgender, Super sees bathroom bills and other “hate-mongering” as an unfortunate stop on the road to equality.

“There used to be this idea, when I first came out, that all we wanted was to be tolerated,” she said. “But nobody wants to just be tolerated; we want to be accepted. Millennials and younger people already understand that, and they’ve developed a sort of empathy gene that us older people didn’t have. They are our hope, and I feel like we are in good hands.”

That “the-children-are-our-future” sentiment has never felt truer for Schuler than it did after the party. It was the students’ idea to throw the celebration. It was the students who switched pronouns almost immediately. And it was the students who inquired about ways they could be allies.

“As a teacher, you hope to make a strong impact on kids, but after a day like today, you realize the impact they are having on you as well,” he said. “It’s something I wasn’t expecting when I started teaching, but, man, it’s a good feeling.”

As students left and Beyoncé was turned down, the balloons and streamers came down, and the watermelon and brownies were divvied up. Schuler grabbed his bag as a student asked if he wanted the “It’s a Boy!” banner.

“Oh, yeah!” he said as he carefully folded it into small squares.

He held it steady for a minute as a smile spread across his face: “I’m definitely going to hang this up.”

Transgender, medically speaking

While being transgender is “not in itself a mental disorder,” according to the American Psychiatric Association, transgender individuals are often diagnosed with a condition called gender dysphoria.

A catchall term for “people whose gender at birth is contrary to the one they identify with,” a gender dysphoria diagnosis can be made only if there is a “marked difference between the individual’s expressed/experienced gender and the gender others would assign him or her,” according to the psychiatric association.

These differences can manifest themselves in many ways, including a patient verbalizing a deeply held sense that he or she is the other gender, asking to be treated as though he or she were the other gender, or desiring to remove or change his or her sex characteristics, the association reports.

Some transgender advocates lobbied the association to remove any diagnosis related to gender nonconformity from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a handbook classifying illness and disorders used by many mental health professionals. The association elected to keep gender dysphoria in the newest edition because eliminating it could “jeopardize access to care.”

“To get insurance coverage for the medical treatments,” including hormone replacement therapy, counseling and sex-reassignment surgery, “individuals need a diagnosis,” a post on the association’s website reads.

More to come

This is the first of an occasional series looking into the lives of transgender Iowans.

Share your story

The Des Moines Register invites readers to share stories of transition in their own lives. We hope to hear from a diverse array of people to show the full scope of the recent triumphs of the transgender community and the challenges it faces.

We welcome you to submit your video testimonial or written response at DesMoinesRegister.com/transiowa.

Or tell us your story on social media by using #transiowa.

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IN THEIR OWN WORDS:

Listen as Iowans share their stories