• Transgender Media

  SEEKING CINDY: WWTC instructor finds herself, inside and out

  Posted by Adrian on 31/10/2005 at 12:42 am

  Source La Crosse Tribune

  http://www.lacrossetribune.com/articles/2005/10/25/news/00lead.txt

  By DAN SIMMONS | La Crosse Tribune

  .
  He lay on his back and cried. Long, desperate sobs, the
  kind that won’t quit no matter who’s around or where you
  are. It was 1996, and Todd Munson had just gotten out of
  back surgery at Franciscan Skemp.

  His doctor stood at his bedside, puzzled. The surgery had
  gone OK, not perfect but not unusually bad. Certainly not
  badly enough to cause this patient — a highly successful
  economics instructor with an MBA, a partner in a sturdy
  marriage, the father of a well-adjusted, high-school-aged
  daughter — to cry like a child.

  Amid the tears, as he lay in his gown, Todd Munson
  managed one sentence to the doctor that had nothing to do
  with back surgery: “I’m not the person you think I am.”

  In the weeks and months that followed, he told others, too, about a secret kept since childhood that
  wouldn’t stay sequestered any longer.

  Therapists in La Crosse learned about it. Munson’s wife, Janice, learned about it. Munson’s daughter,
  Becki, learned about it.

  They were the first to learn that Todd Munson had never felt comfortable as Todd Munson. In telling
  them, Munson began the process that eventually led to a new role, the role Munson has comfortably
  assumed since 2000: Cindy Munson.

  ‘I’m not the only one’

  It was 1972, and Munson was 23, an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside
  near his native Racine, Wis., when he picked up a book. Its title: “Everything You Always Wanted to
  Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask.”

  There he came across a word he had never seen — “transgender” — whose definition he knew too well:
  “Feeling that you’re a woman in a man’s body.”

  “The good news was there were other people like me,” Munson said. “The bad news was I knew I had
  to squelch this. I told myself, ‘You can’t let this get out.’”

  As a boy in Racine, Wis., the only child of strict, orderly parents, Munson said he never felt comfortable
  in his own skin. “Being a boy was a mask, a role I had to put on, but I didn’t do it successfully.”

  He spent childhood facing the stigma every boy dreads — “Sissy.”

  He spent most of his adulthood doing everything he could to be the opposite. He swore. He drank Jack
  Daniels whiskey. He smoked cigars. He took a job as a security guard for a year. And he went out with
  women.

  “They all called me a perfect gentleman,” Munson says now, laughing, “because I wasn’t all that attracted
  to them physically.”

  But it was an act. And Munson knew it. Now he recognizes that his behavior fit a pattern among
  transgender people, to “act out gender stereotypes to try to cure yourself.” Munson said he has
  transgender friends who assumed the most masculine roles: Marines, police officers, firefighters.

  To calm himself, Munson began taking tranquilizers — easily available at the doctor’s office back then —
  when he was 18. Drugs such as Valium and Librium became staples of his diet.

  Finding love

  Despite all that ailed him internally, Munson found lasting professional success and personal stability.

  He had started teaching at night in 1978, and fell instantly in love with the job. After earning a master’s
  degree in business administration at UW-Parkside in 1989, he was hired as an economics instructor at
  Western Wisconsin Technical College in La Crosse, and has been there ever since.

  He married Janice in 1974, after meeting her at a party in Milwaukee and falling in love. Munson said the
  marriage felt “somewhat like a lie,” but he took the vows seriously — and still does, almost 32 years later.

  It’s another coping strategy many transgender people use, he said: Get married to cure yourself.

  And he fathered a daughter who, Munson said, has lived a mostly normal, well-adjusted life. She’s now
  married and works in Madison.

  Still, Munson said, “My outside didn’t match my inside.” And the back surgery in 1996, for reasons still
  unknown to Munson, became the breaking point, the day “when I finally couldn’t take it anymore.”

  Time for a change

  Among all the people he shared his secret with, Munson said his daughter, then 20, took it hardest.
  Young adulthood presents enough challenges without having your father tell you he’s considering a sex
  change.

  Little by little, though, Munson said his daughter came to accept the change, with one condition: “When I
  get married, my dad has to walk me down the aisle, as (my) dad,” she told him.

  “And that seemed a very reasonable request,” Munson said.

  When the wedding day came, Munson already had been dressing like a woman, taking estrogen and
  introducing himself as Cindy Munson. It was part of the extensive, multi-year process all people
  pondering a sex change must undergo.

  First comes counseling with professional psychologists, including a battery of tests to confirm the person
  meets the diagnosis of “gender dysphoria.” “Basically, it means your mind and body are mismatched
  sexually,” Munson said. It requires a person to tell all people close to them — family, friends, employers
  — about the decision.

  Then comes group counseling for at least a year, meeting with other people considering a sex change.
  Munson went through the whole process at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Sexual Health in
  Minneapolis. A year or so after starting it, he completed the counseling and was cleared to start taking
  estrogen and begin life as Cindy.

  Except he had to be Todd one final time. Dressed in a black tuxedo, he walked his only daughter down
  the aisle.

  That was the last of Todd. Cindy named herself after a woman Todd went to college with and admired.
  “She was a person like I wanted to be — very intelligent, great sense of humor, very athletic,” Munson
  said.

  It’s official

  After years of counseling and more than a year of taking hormones and cross-dressing, Munson legally
  switched identity to Cindy on July 10, 2000.

  She feared becoming Cindy might make it too awkward or uncomfortable to teach. “If I would have had
  to make a choice between being me and being a teacher — which I love — it would’ve been real hard,”
  she said.

  But a very healthy sense of humor and an openness about the topic helped make the transition much
  easier than it could have been, said colleagues and students.

  At first, Munson’s sense of humor made some colleagues skeptical. Lisa Judd, a social sciences instructor
  at WWTC, had an office next to Munson and was one of his best friends on staff.

  The first time he talked to her about it, she “thought it was a joke,” she said — just like all his other jokes,
  about the raise he just got, about his promotions, about his Russian-American mother.

  But Judd quickly realized that, this time, her friend was serious. “I realized he was in a lot of pain,” she
  said. “It’s got to be very difficult, living in the wrong gender.”

  Back to school

  When she stood before her first class in the fall of 2000, Cindy Munson made an announcement. “The
  person in front of you is not the person you expected to see. I’m going through a sex change. If you have
  any questions, please feel free to ask.”

  She made the announcement to head off any confusion among her students. “I had been around for a long
  time, and had a fairly good reputation as Todd,” Munson said. “So it must have been somewhat strange
  to walk into class and see Cindy Munson, standing there in a dress.”

  Munson gave in-service presentations to faculty as well about the process she had undergone, and was
  still undergoing. From both students and colleagues, she said, she’s encountered almost nothing but
  support.

  “Honestly, I anticipated more reaction than there was,” said Dr. Linda Schwandt, dean of general studies
  at WWTC and Munson’s former teaching mentor. But no students came to talk to her about the change.

  “I believe that’s because Cindy did the groundwork, and also because she’s such a great teacher,” she
  said.

  In a recent class, Munson illustrated her lessons about price ceilings by re-enacting a conversation
  between her (when she was Todd) and a Russian instructor she met while teaching in Dubna, Russia, in
  1993. They were talking about coffee in the former Soviet Union.

  “I do not zink you are telling me zee truth,” Munson said, impersonating the man’s Russian baritone. “And
  here I was, halfway across the world, being called a liar.”

  Rarely do five minutes pass in class without Munson saying something funny, sometimes planned,
  sometimes improvised, like when the lights wouldn’t go back on and she greeted the cameras — her class
  is broadcast live to students in Mauston — and said, “Welcome to our Halloween show.” Although she
  has to sit still to stay on camera, Munson moves her arms constantly, gesturing, pounding on the table,
  drawing supply-demand graphs on an overhead projector.

  “She knows how to make this stuff (economics) fun,” said Jared Anderson, 19, a current student in
  Munson’s class. “She’s not boring, and she knows how to incorporate examples of how it works in the
  real world.”

  It didn’t hurt, either, that Cindy made some noticeable improvements over Todd.

  “Cindy’s more relaxed, happier, not as angry as Todd,” Judd said. “I could sense Todd was very angry
  and frustrated. It’s hard to wear a mask and be who you’re not.”

  Feels fortunate

  Unlike Todd Munson, 56-year-old Cindy Munson puts on makeup, wears earrings and necklaces, has
  occasional trouble tucking her skirt into her pantyhose, leaves behind lipstick residue on coffee cups and
  has found that she gets interrupted more when talking. Plus, she’s put on weight. “Estrogen does not help
  you stay skinny,” Cindy said, laughing.

  But like Todd Munson, Cindy Munson studies the economics of the Great Depression. “It’s where we
  learned a lot about how the economy worked because, at that time in history, the economy didn’t work,”
  she said. And Munson fires a .22-caliber rifle at targets at the Holmen Rod and Gun Club. And Munson
  still does jigsaw puzzles.

  Most importantly, Munson is still married to Janice, more happily than before. She said it’s a trend among
  transgender people to remain married after their sex change.

  “Now,” Munson said, “we’re more equal partners than we’ve ever been.” Both his wife and daughter,
  however, did not wish to be interviewed.

  Munson said she feels extremely fortunate, considering how little her personal and professional lives have
  changed. “Some people lose everything — their family, friends and job,” she said. “Your whole life can
  really fall apart.”

  No looking back

  Cindy Munson said if she heard somebody screaming, “Todd, Todd,” she wouldn’t turn around, despite
  going through life with that name for almost a half-century. She said there’s not been a second thought
  about her new identity.

  “Last summer, I was diagnosed with diabetes,” she said, “and it’s been much harder getting used to life as
  a diabetic than as a woman.”

  She said she appreciates a lot of Todd’s accomplishments. “I’m grateful to Todd because he was so
  driven,” she said. “He got degrees that led to a job I truly love.”

  But there’s not much else about Todd she misses, Cindy said. For Halloween last year, a colleague
  suggested she dress as Todd. But she refused.

  “That’s one monster I never want to face again,” she said, laughing.

  Dan Simmons can be reached at (608) 791-8217 or dsimmons@lacrossetribune.com.

  Adrian replied 19 years, 5 months ago 1 Member · 0 Replies
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