Leslie Townsend - Hidden in Plain Sight

2002, English, Leslie Townsend,

Full title: "Hidden in Plain Sight" by Leslie Townsend. 

"Leslie lives life to the fullest. She is loved and respected by her family and friends. Throughout her life, she has achieved many goals including working as a model, getting married and entertaining audiences as a stand-up comedienne. However, all the while, Leslie has been hiding a secret about her past. Always fearful of being rejected and ostracized if the truth came to light, Leslie kept her past just that, the past.

But secrets weigh heavy on her mind and after years of lies and covering her tracks through career pursuits and relationships, she has decided to tell the truth about her transsexual history and the struggle to live with the legacy of her decision. This story follows the journey of a child in confusion, an adolescent in turmoil and a young adult, who embarks on a quest for wholeness. It is a story of breaking gender barriers and of crossing the chasm from male to female."

Leslie Townsend is an American model, transactivist, and businesswoman. Since going public in 2002 with her autobiography, Hidden in Plain Sight, Leslie has come to embrace her transgender history and let go of the shame that haunted her for many years. She starred in "Beautiful Daughters" (2006), a documentary that follows the casting, rehearsal, and performances of the first transgender production of The Vagina Monologues.

Leslie's involvement in Beautiful Daughters gave her a sense of fulfillment that has motivated her to make an even bigger difference in the transgender community. From her own struggles at a young age, it has been her wish to help students who are not only facing the rigors of academic life, but an even bigger challenge within themselves. This resulted in the creation of The Leslie Townsend Fund, which supports students making a gender transition during their time at the University of Pennsylvania.

We can read about her on Lynn Conway's website: "As a teenager in deep turmoil about my gender identity, thoughts of going to college took a backseat to the immediate concerns in my mind. My parents would ask me about what career I wanted to pursue. They pushed the issue about attending college. I never gave them a solid answer because, for one thing, they knew nothing about my “problem” at that time and because I didn’t know what I wanted as a career.

All I knew was that I wanted to be a girl. Nothing else could even enter my mind I was so consumed with this secret. I was supposed to be female. The question was how I was going to make that happen. I lived in a time, the late seventies, when going to college and transitioning at the same time never seemed to be an option. I would have had no support system. The odds would have been stacked against me. I would have certainly faced ridicule and maybe even violence. The choice I made was to leave home and attend the school of hard knocks while at the same time becoming a woman. It was a struggle that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

Though I was fulfilling one dream, I was paying the price in terms of living a life on the fringes and isolating myself from “normal” society. In the end, I reached womanhood, but never pursued a continuing education. Today, I see that things are changing in positive ways for young people who want to transition at a young age and also attend college. In this way they can get the education they deserve while living the life they want in order to be their true selves. This is the purpose of The Leslie Townsend Fund, which benefits transgendered students attending the University of Pennsylvania."

Available via Amazon

Photo via aronsonfilms.com

Photo and excerpt from ai.eecs.umich.edu