A woman’s quest to erase a past that won’t die
For Payette resident Catherine Carlson, today matters at least as much as yesterday

In this Jan. 21, photo, Catherine Carlson, 52, shops for insulating undergarments at a discount retail store in Ontario. Carlson often wears many layers of clothing to stay warm after years of malnourishment have left her frail and emaciated.

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Catherine stared at the citation. It was issued to both her and to Daniel Carlson. Nearly three decades ago, she underwent surgery to become a woman and took legal steps to remove her male name from public records. The ticket triggered memories of a man who, as far as she was concerned, no longer existed.

In her mind it was clear: She would have to fight to be Catherine.

And so, she mounted an impossible campaign to erase her former life, a yearlong battle against every slight and indignity — real or perceived.

Catherine would not accept that the past, no matter how painful and imperfect, is always with us, no matter how we might try to escape it.

Payette County had resurrected a ghost she laid to rest long ago. She decided the men and women who live and govern here should be the ones to bury it.

The past, however, turned out to be just as stubborn as she was.

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Broken pavement winds through the rows of white trailers that residents describe as a transient camp. No one stays for long, except for Catherine, who has lived here for three years.

Her 1971 Broadmoor RV sits close to the entrance. The newspaper box is broken. White paint is peeling off the rickety wooden steps where a welcome mat reminds visitors to WIPE YOUR PAWS.

She brews pot after pot of weak coffee in a kitchen where the plates are paper and the curtains are old dish towels.

This is the home anger, where frustration and mistrust built. She keeps her reasons in a silver briefcase, where court documents from nearly 10 years ago detail a dispute between Catherine and her mother, who revealed during the case that her daughter was born male. That cemented a place for Daniel’s name in public records.

Catherine lived in the shadows for years, protecting herself from scrutiny — until Dec. 3, 2007, when the officer pulled her over and found both her legal name and her birth name, listed as an “also known as,” in county records.

He scrawled both on the citation. She was fined $841.

“It’s not just a ticket,” Catherine said. “It destroys my ability to be me.” Her driver’s license was first suspended in 2006 when she refused to pay a fine for driving without a seat belt. As in her teenage years, when suicide seemed a viable option, she was pleading to be heard but going about it the wrong way. Seat belts stir troubling memories of institutions and their inflexible rules.

As a matter of principle, she refused to pay the citation and failed to appear for court-ordered community service and a hearing.

Quietly, she cloaked herself in anger bred from a lifetime of being hurt and misunderstood. In Payette, old battles became new again and she fought the authorities with a rage they did not expect. She was not physically attacked here, her home was not vandalized, yet she seemed to want retribution for every indignity lurking in her tortured past.

Payette just wanted her to pay the ticket.

By emerging from seclusion, she forced questions the county had never considered: where to house a transgender in a jail with separate cells for men and women, which courthouse bathroom she should use, whether her old, male name should be stricken from records.

She went to jail four times in her fight to be recognized as a woman.

“It’s frustrating,” said Chad Huff, the county sheriff. “We certainly don’t want her to spend time in jail. She just continues to find a way to get here.”

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Catherine was born Daniel Steven Carlson and raised by a strict Mormon mother in Wyoming and small towns across Idaho and Montana before her family moved to California. From the age of 5, Daniel believed he should have been a girl. He was beaten for cross dressing in middle school, and tried to castrate himself with a razor blade. At 18, he nearly jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge after his stepdad told him he was no longer welcome in their home and his mother had him excommunicated from the church.

“I could not deal with the fact that I was an abomination to God,” Catherine said.

Those pleas for help landed Daniel in mental hospitals, where infractions like refusing to take medicine were easily dealt with: Daniel was strapped to a bed and injected with sedatives.

He was in his early 20s and broke when he found Dr. Stanley Biber, a former Army surgeon who was one of the first to perform gender reassignment surgeries in the United States.

Before the doctor would consider the operation, Daniel had to submit to a psychiatric evaluation, start hormone therapy, pass as a woman and legally change his name. He worked three jobs to raise $15,000 for the surgery.

A confused boy began the lonely journey. He went alone to Colorado to finish it on Thanksgiving Day 1980.

“That doctor gave me life,” Catherine said.

The transition can take one year, or several, as patients undergo hormone therapy and cosmetic surgery. They relearn how to walk and talk, and they become experts at blending in.

Catherine was married, divorced — and, at one point, beautiful. In an old photograph, a young Catherine with short blond hair and denim skirt poses in front of the bridge where Daniel tried to die.

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The old minivan eases down Oregon Highway 201, past acres of frozen farmland and naked trees covered in snow. On a bitterly cold day in January, Catherine drives 10 miles (16 kilometers) from her home, crossing a bridge over the Snake River into Oregon, to shop at the Bi-Mart where no one will recognize her. This Catherine bares no resemblance to the attractive blonde she nearly died to become. This Catherine will not be defined by whether she wears a red blouse or a plaid work shirt.

This is a new Catherine, defiant yet hopeful. In the last year, she emerged from hiding not as a woman, but as a transgender fighting for the same rights granted to everyone else. She called the local newspaper. She wrote a seven-page letter begging the court to drop the ticket and abolish Daniel for good. This was not about the law, she argued.

During an arraignment hearing, the judge verified Catherine’s legal name, promised to treat her with courtesy and respect, and pledged to address her how she wished to be addressed. Then Magistrate Judge A. Lynne Krogh called her “sir” eight times within a span of 10 minutes.

Across Catherine’s handwritten plea to the court, the letter asking that Daniel Steven Carlson be stricken from public records, the word DENIED is stamped in giant red letters.

She was jailed four times. She failed to appear for court-ordered community service, drove without her license and was held in contempt of court because she was “semi-indignant” to the judge, the county sheriff says. Finally, a stranger settled the dispute.

Elizabeth Barbour, a bookkeeper in Redwood City, California, read about Catherine online. Barbour paid the reduced fine of $510 in October after Catherine spent three days in jail.

“I couldn’t imagine how difficult it must be for a transgender person in Idaho,” Barbour said.

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Every snub fuels Catherine’s strength of purpose. In a county without decent public transportation, she still drives without a license, knowing Daniel will emerge again if she is caught. He haunts her, yet he is part of her, a permanent reminder of a time when she felt helpless. She will do whatever it takes to get rid of him. She is convinced this is no longer about Catherine. This is about people who take painful steps to embrace who they see in the mirror, only to have society summon their past to glare back at them. Her short trip to the Bi-Mart behind her, Catherine pulls the van into the trailer park, one more of the few places in this world where she feels safe, normal.

She carefully makes her way across the icy road to the solace of her trailer. She can hear Shadow and Tina barking, vying for her attention. She grins and climbs the creaking steps.