In 1965, I was 6 years old and unceremoniously informed that I was, in fact, not a girl. The next 53 years were filled with deep depression, anger and extreme violence aimed at those who certainly did not deserve it. The anger and violence resulted in my incarceration within the Missouri prison system in 1979.
2015 would serve to open my eyes, to permit me to see past the haunting images and glimpse a faint light through the darkness. It was then that I first heard the term “gender dysphoria.”
“Really?” I thought. “This is real and there is treatment?” I read, studied, and asked questions. I discovered there are others like me in the world.
But discovering I wasn’t alone in my struggle didn’t make it easy when it came to convincing others who had control of my life. Instead it was the beginning of my three-year ordeal, fighting against the voices from the darkness who tried so hard to pull me back until, at long last I was permitted to talk with a psychiatrist.
I cried when, after only 20 minutes, she began using female pronouns and, at last, she confirmed to me that I was not some freak, that I truly was a woman! The State’s contracted health care provider soon fired the doctor who diagnosed me with gender dysphoria and would not let me see another doctor for nearly a year.
When they did at last permit me to see another doctor, they asked that I be reevaluated. Again, much to their dismay, the new doctor also made the same diagnosis as did the third doctor, So much time, so much effort, so much money spent in an effort to prove I wasn’t in fact a woman. And at the end of the day, all three doctors came to the same diagnosis: I AM A WOMAN!
On May 6, 2018, at 10:30 a.m., I was at long last given my first dosage of estradiol. The nurse at the medication window must have known this would be something very special, as she called me to medical after all other prisoners had received their medication. When she pushed the little cup containing three tabs (1mg each) of estradiol through the window, I found myself so full of emotion, unable to take the pills at first due to my sobs of blissful joy.
On September 17, 2018, the Circuit Court of Cole County Missouri made it official, when the order was made final, changing my name legally to Patricia Elane Trimble.
To all of my brothers and sisters in the world, let your light shine so that it can push back the darkness that seeks to engulf many in our communities!
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Here are our ground rules:
- You must credit Prison Journalism Project. In the byline, we prefer “[Author Name], Prison Journalism Project.” At the top of the text of your story, please include a line that says: “This story was originally published by Prison Journalism Project” and include a link to the article.
- No republishing of photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
- No editing the content, including the headline, except to reflect changes in time, location and editorial style. For example, changing, “today” to “last week,” or San Quentin to San Quentin, California. You can also make minor revisions for style or headline size, and you can trim stories for space. You must also retain all original hyperlinks, including links to the Prison Journalism Project newsletters.
- No translation of our stories into another language without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
- No selling ads against our stories, but you can publish it on a page with ads that you’ve already sold.
- No reselling or syndicating our stories, including on platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. You also can’t republish our work automatically or all at once. Please select them individually.
- No scraping our website or using our stories to populate websites designed to improve search rankings or gain revenue from network-based advertisements.
- Any site our stories appear on must have a prominent and effective way to contact you.
- If we send you a request to remove our story, you must do so immediately.
- If you share republished stories on social media, please tag Prison Journalism Project. We have official accounts on Twitter (@prisonjourn), Facebook (@prisonjournalism), Instagram (@prisonjournalism) and Linked In.
- Let us know when you share the story. Send us a note, so we can keep track.
I Am a Woman
