In Chicago, Ridgely Became Nancy

                                 By Florida Bill

                                           It was back in the 1970s when I first heard about transgenders and transvestites and the question of the appropriate bathrooms.  Looking back, there was far less emotion and controversy than we have today, and the White House had far more important issues with which to be concerned.   
                                           In those days I was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune.  Among its hundreds of editorial employees was an ex-infantry sergeant named Ridgely Hunt who was well recognized as an exceptional writer and reporter.  Ridgely had won a number of awards for his savvy writing skills, and his dispatches as a war correspondent.  The washroom problem reared its head when the hard-hitting, mustached army veteran began transitioning from male to female in the bustling city room of Chicago's largest and most powerful daily newspaper.
                                            Hunt was a 1950 graduate of Yale university.  Friendly and popular with the staff,  he wrote acclaimed feature stories and analytical pieces. He and his first wife had two daughters and a son, and after a divorce, Ridgely married his baby sitter who was some 20 years his junior. My wife and I sat at a table with them at a press event, and they appeared happy and devoted to each other. 
                                            Eyes began to twitch a bit around the city desk in Tribune Tower when Hunt began reporting for work with male tailored woman's shirts and a touch of makeup, and  he also began to let his hair grow.  As months passed, the appearance of femininity began to dominate but the real eclipse came when the former soldier came to work in full woman's clothing and makeup. Editors on the paper snapped to attention and reassigned  Ridgely, who was now asking associates to call him "Nancy," to copy editing and head line writing.                                         
                                            Similarly, Nancy Hunt's use of the woman's bathroom became an issue while she was still anatomically male, and drew complaints from some women on the staff.  Men, in the meantime, didn't want anybody in a dress using their bathroom.  In face of the consternation, the new Nancy quietly elected to use the bathroom in a Sheridan Hotel next to the Tower on Michigan avenue.  Unlike today's Caitlyn Jenner, Hunt underwent complete reassignment surgery in 1978, and took hormones  to effect a complete change of sex. Eventually, many of the women in the office looked on her as just another one of the girls and the turmoil died down. 
                                            Nancy retired from the Tribune around 1984, and authored  a book "Mirror Image," described on the cover as an odyssey of a male to female transsexual.  She was profiled by People Magazine and appeared on the Phil Donahue Television show where she took questions from the audience.  She remarried and Nancy and her husband, Wallace Bowman, resided in Michigan until Nancy's death at 72 in 1999, and there have always been reports that Nancy's husband never knew of her transition from male to female. 
                                              Much of the talk of today's trangenders is the threat they might pose to children and others inside a bathroom. Nancy Hunt's story would certainly belie some concerns along this line, though many parents are fearful of exposing their children to those who claim to have transformed themselves to a different sex--or to opportunistic perverts simply taking advantage of the new washroom liberties. 
                                              North Carolina has enacted a law calling for transgendered persons to use public bathrooms of the sex they were born with.   Imagine the uproar if Nancy Hunt, dressing and acting feminine with a body conforming to a female in every way,  was forced to use the men's shower room because of her sex as recorded at birth.  That would certainly have created discord. So that approach may not be the right answer to this difficult dilemma.
                                          The law created a national firestorm, and President Obama had his education authorities issue a directive contradicting the North Carolina law, with the federal edict that individuals are to use the washrooms and locker rooms in schools of the sex to which they identify--a rather large, unenforceable loophole, which doesn't seem to be the solution either.  However, Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch has threatened to sue and to withhold federal assistance to schools which do not follow the directive.   
                                              At last count, 13 states had filed lawsuits challenging the Obama administration's edict imposed upon schools.  
                                               The Democratic nominee for president, Hillary Clinton, has endorsed President's Obama's directive to schools that children use the washroom of the sex with which they identify; while Republican nominee Donald Trump has said that the matter should be left to each of the sovereign states for resolution.                                            
                                           

                                              XXX