A transgender evacuee's story

[PDittie]

Arpollo Vicks was born male, but in January, the 20-year-old became, she says, "who I really am." She started living as a woman.

In New Orleans, this was no big deal. Friends and family began calling her Sharli'e. She says that at L.B. Landry Middle School, where she worked as a substitute teacher, kids who had known her as Mr. Vicks simply began calling her Ms. Vicks.

Sharli'e's gender didn't play a part in the beginning of her Katrina miseries, either. After the levees broke, she and two cousins left their downtown neighborhood, looking for help and higher ground. Eighteen-year-old Rolanda Grisham was a plain-vanilla, born-that-way girl. Things were more complicated for Rolanda's 16-year-old sibling. Like Sharli'e, Leo had been born male but lived as a woman.

The three waded and swam a mile and half to the terrifying New Orleans Convention Center, where they spent two uncomfortable nights, one punctuated by gunfire. They then spent two hot, hungry days on an Interstate 10 overpass. At the Superdome, they finally found someone to rescue them. A bus carried the three to Houston, but it was turned away at the Astrodome. Around 1 a.m. that Sunday, the three learned that they had arrived, instead, in College Station. They were shepherded into a shelter at Texas A&M University's Reed Arena.

Pansexual, live-and-let-live New Orleans had arrived in the heart of Aggieland, and there was bound to be trouble.

There's lots more trouble, but the story ends happily.

[JoFerret]

1. Glad about the happy ending

.

[katinmn]

2. Yet another reminder of what was lost with the ravaging of NO

a place where transgenders were easily accepted in the community.

I'm glad Sharli'e and Leo were rescued by knowledgeable people in Houston, but it's sad the ordeal they went through initially on top of being evacuees.

This article is a good reminder that there is a lot of work left to do in raising awareness about transgenders.

[...of J.Temperance]

3. This is why the NOLA people need to go back to NOLA

Because EVERYBODY is accepted for what they ARE in the Crescent City...well EVERYBODY accepts what everybody IS APART from the many bigots Uptown, Lakeview etc who ONLY accept Faux white Christians.

[JoFerret]

5. Dallas MD has a view . Not poor and indigent.

...this letter was in yesterday's NYTimes and gives interesting insight into who many of these displaced people are (not always how they are presented in the media. Also her hope for political impact:

To the Editor:

My experience as a doctor treating evacuees from New Orleans at the Dallas Convention Center did not confirm the general impression of masses of poor indigent people.

I met many professionals, by and large African-American - teachers, hospital technicians, engineers and midlevel administrators, as well as skilled tradesmen and even medical students. Many had good health and evidence of good health care.

Some of the worst experiences I heard from them included swimming past bodies to get to the Superdome; families tying bodies to trees for later recovery; sleeping on feces-covered floors for days; helplessly watching elderly people and children die of heat exposure and dehydration; and having weapons aimed at them.

The emotional theme was anger and disbelief of the kind that might bring about political change.

I found myself hoping that they would settle in Texas.

Kathleen Delaney, M.D.
Dallas, Sept. 12, 2005

[Laughing Mirror]

4. Arrested! Jailed for taking a shower!

A shower that was not only hygenically necessary to remove the toxic waste from the skin, but a criminal luxury for someone like Sharli'e, a.k.a. "It," called "It" by the unbiased egalitarian enlightened deputies at Brazos County Sheriff's Dept.

[Imagevision]

6. Sharli'e, at least you made it out kiddo...!