Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar
Despair Over Brownlee's Fate
RECEIVED Tue., Feb. 10, 2004
Hi Jordan [Smith],
I want to thank you for your article on Ben Brownlee in the Chronicle this week ["The Death of Ben Brownlee," News, Jan. 30]. It moved me to tears.
I am a transsexual. I am one of those people who truly understands what Ben Brownlee felt like – the loneliness, the isolation, the despair, and the hope. This is not an easy life, not a life that any of us asked for, and unfortunately a life that for far too many of us is cut short due to intolerance and hate.
I'm very active nationally in trying to prevent things like this from happening. I've written a book about my experience that earned me an invitation to the Texas Book Festival. I speak at schools and conferences around the country. I'm the vice-chairperson of the Transgender Advocates of Central Texas. All of this in an attempt to promote education, to battle the barrier of fear and prejudice that leads to tragedy.
The fact that this happened so close by fills me with a terrible sense of futility. Texas is not an easy place to be different, and the courage that people like Ben display to be authentic in the face of constant harassment is nothing short of heroic. I keep wondering if there was anything I could have done, any way I could have met this child to help them. But of course, that didn't happen, and we're left talking about a life cut short. It's just so sad.
Please feel free to forward this e-mail to Ben's family. Please offer my sympathies to them. Please ask them to visit my Web site (www.donnarose.com) if they have interest in learning more. And, please encourage them to contact me if I can help ... if they need someone to talk with.
We like to think that there's such a thing as justice. I sometimes find it difficult to believe that such a thing exists. At the very least, it's obvious that, in this case, justice has turned her cheek. For now. But the memory of the dead is a very powerful force, and even those of us who never knew her can say: We will not forget Ben Brownlee, and we will not let her life have ended for nothing. Her true story will come out.
I want to thank you for your article on Ben Brownlee in the Chronicle this week ["The Death of Ben Brownlee," News, Jan. 30]. It moved me to tears.
I am a transsexual. I am one of those people who truly understands what Ben Brownlee felt like – the loneliness, the isolation, the despair, and the hope. This is not an easy life, not a life that any of us asked for, and unfortunately a life that for far too many of us is cut short due to intolerance and hate.
I'm very active nationally in trying to prevent things like this from happening. I've written a book about my experience that earned me an invitation to the Texas Book Festival. I speak at schools and conferences around the country. I'm the vice-chairperson of the Transgender Advocates of Central Texas. All of this in an attempt to promote education, to battle the barrier of fear and prejudice that leads to tragedy.
The fact that this happened so close by fills me with a terrible sense of futility. Texas is not an easy place to be different, and the courage that people like Ben display to be authentic in the face of constant harassment is nothing short of heroic. I keep wondering if there was anything I could have done, any way I could have met this child to help them. But of course, that didn't happen, and we're left talking about a life cut short. It's just so sad.
Please feel free to forward this e-mail to Ben's family. Please offer my sympathies to them. Please ask them to visit my Web site (www.donnarose.com) if they have interest in learning more. And, please encourage them to contact me if I can help ... if they need someone to talk with.
We like to think that there's such a thing as justice. I sometimes find it difficult to believe that such a thing exists. At the very least, it's obvious that, in this case, justice has turned her cheek. For now. But the memory of the dead is a very powerful force, and even those of us who never knew her can say: We will not forget Ben Brownlee, and we will not let her life have ended for nothing. Her true story will come out.
Donna Rose
