Transgender people are under the microscope in West Virginia.
Over the last three years the state Legislature has ramped up bills to restrict medical treatment and limit protections for trans people.
Within hours of taking office for the second time, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that defined male and female and does not recognize those who underwent transition on their passports and other government documents. Less than a month later, in his State of the State address, Gov. Patrick Morrisey called for banning transgender people from using bathrooms and locker rooms according to their gender identities.
And a few weeks ago, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case regarding the state’s ban on transgender students competing in sports with the gender they identify with.
But for trans West Virginians, this isn’t politics. It’s their lives. Here are their stories:
“I am the news”
Tifa Ward, 32, lives in Charleston. Pop-punk music, with its catchy lyrics and upbeat tempo, match her non-conformist vibe. Her favorite color is blue, as evidenced by her bob. She goes to anime conventions, where she dresses up as her favorite characters and commiserates with her fellow fans.
At those conventions, Ward said she can be herself. People are on the whole more accepting, and she doesn’t have to explain her love of titles like Ouran High School Host Club, a gender-bending romantic comedy set at an elite private academy.
“I just go and everybody gets it,” Ward said.
She works as a counselor, with an emphasis on treating queer populations.
Around the capital city, she doesn’t experience too much harassment. But she said that wasn’t the case in Summers and Greenbrier counties, where she grew up.
Ward said an innocuous trip to the grocery store would be difficult back there.
“I would just feel exposed,” she said. “I would feel very seen, because everybody there knows me, so I would be more in fear of an attack or someone coming up and being rude or harmful, as opposed to in Charleston, where not a lot of people do know me.”
Growing up, she was the “wimp.” People commented on her soft hands. Her family called her feminine. Well into her 20s, she tried to blend in and live as a male, but eventually she had to face the facts: she is a woman.
But in today’s political climate, where politicians malign her very existence, she tries to practice what she preaches to her transgender clients.
Keep hormones needed to maintain gender identity stocked, in case they’re outlawed. Stay busy. Be prepared for changes in the laws. Find a community. Try not to look at the news.
That last part, she said, is easier said than done.
“One of my clients put it best,” Ward said. “He said, you know, I don’t want to pay attention to the news, but I am the news.”
“Like a superhero”
Vinny Lockhart came out at a very early age, around 12 or 13.
“I kind of knew I was queer in general for a long time, and then I kind of just decided this would make me a lot happier, and this fits how I feel,” Lockhart said.
Growing up in South Charleston, Lockhart said he had support. There were plenty of queer youth to make friends with. His family respected his identity.
He draws people and plants. He thinks Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” is better than the Johnny Cash cover. He tools around town on a scooter. Sometimes, he likes to go to a local mineral shop and buy a shiny rock to give as a gift, as a way for people to remember meeting him.
At 19, he is still trying to figure life out, like what career to pursue.
Lockhart has not received gender confirmation treatment, meaning the course of hormones and surgeries to physically present as a male. Now working at a daycare, Lockhart said he largely keeps his gender identity a secret and presents as female, not because of the kids, but how their parents might feel.
“It’s like I have a secret identity, like I’m a superhero,” Lockhart said.
But Lockhart said he’s proud to be a trans man in West Virginia. For the longest time, he thought he’d have to flee the state to be happy, but now Lockhart believes things can change for the better.
“I’ve been making more friends that align with my views and align with how they want to work towards a better state,” Lockhart said. “And I think it’s going to take time to get there, and I do have hopes for the future.”
“It’s hard to have hope”
Twenty-two-year-old Nik Rucker is a trans man in Kanawha County. Originally from Clarksburg, Rucker said he knew from an early age he was male. Even though he was clumsy and unathletic, he always went with the boys to play basketball in gym class.
But he didn’t have a word for it, until he got on the internet and learned. At 17, he started presenting as a male. He hopes one day to research microwave radiation, key to studying the age of the universe.
“I’ve wanted to be in the science field since I was in middle school,” he said. “I would educate myself and watch documentaries, and I watched the Science channel a lot. After a few years of trying to pin something down, I realized that astrophysics was something I was really interested in.”
When he moved to college to study astronomy he underwent hormone therapy. But it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Rucker said he was deadnamed — being called by the name given to him at birth — frequently. Some students called him slurs.
His mental health took a toll and he was in and out of the hospital. His grades dropped and after an unsuccessful suicide attempt, he left school.
“It’s hard to have hope and see a way out of that whenever you can’t even exist,” he said.
Rucker now lives in Charleston with his partner. He takes online classes to get his GPA back up, hoping to return to school.
Since the election, Rucker said more people question his gender or outright refuse to call him a man.
“There has been a very noticeable difference in how I’m treated, how my friends who are queer are treated,” he said. “It’s almost like it made people bolder.”
“It’s my home”
When Jemma Cook was eight, she realized she was a girl. And for 24 years, she was determined to keep that truth buried deep inside herself, even if it killed her.
“I wanted to blow my brains out for over 20 years. It finally got to the second time I was prepping a gun to do that before I decided that I can’t keep doing this,” Cook said.
Coming out wasn’t easy. She had to do it gradually. At home, she’d be female. Then a little bit at a time, she’d walk out into public and visit family revealing her true identity.
She believes her life may be easier because she presents as female enough that no one really questions it. But as an out and proud trans woman, she’s found most people just don’t care one way or the other.
“It’s just some weirdos in the Legislature have got a tizzy about the particular way that I live my life,” Cook said. “They’ve singled out me and other folks like me as a particular class of folks that offend them.”
Today, Cook lives in Beckley. She holds a Ph.D. and teaches psychology. She spends her days with her two terrier dogs, Peter Barker and Milo. In the evenings, she watches Jeopardy and chats with her mom while she sews.
Her big project this summer is growing sunflowers on her balcony, though she’ll be the first to say growing anything is a win. Her life seems fairly normal to her.
“I guess it’s pretty much like being anybody in West Virginia,” she said.