Editor’s note: Sophie Prell is the Opinion Editor for the Daily. She didn’t suggest we preview “Dialogues” until Tuesday, several weeks after the news desk planned to cover the event.

Nearly 3 million people in the United States were genetically assigned a sex at birth and identify with a different gender.  

ISU student Sophia Prell, senior in journalism and mass communication, is one of those 3 million.

She began questioning her identity at age 5. Born as Gaylen Miller, Prell began living as Sophie during her sophomore year at Iowa State. Prell’s play, “Dialogues: A Collection of Transgender Memoirs,” will open Friday at the Maintenance Shop as a fundraiser for her physical transition into womanhood.

Seeds of Change — Prell felt different at a young age. Although she enjoyed some of the same activities as other boys, such as playing with action figures and watching scary movies, she didn’t share the same role models and aspirations.

“It would manifest itself mostly when I was around other people,” she said. “Especially being socialized as a boy, you socialize with other boys, and I just really didn’t identify with them … my thinking just wasn’t in the same vein as theirs.”

Prell said it is difficult to describe how she felt, but that it was a “big feeling of emptiness. It’s just this empty, empty feeling. You go through the motions of life, but even happiness doesn’t make you happy.”

Feelings of uncertainty were always looming. She remembers a trip to Walmart with her friends. Walking past the Barbie aisle made her stop and want to look at the dolls.

“I just started asking them, ‘Hey, if I was a girl would you guys still be my friends?’” she remembered. 

Growing up in rural Iowa, Prell was relatively unexposed to gay or transgender individuals. She recalls the concept of homosexuality being ridiculed.

Video games became an outlet for Prell. She enjoyed role-play games, and although she couldn’t explain it, she always played as a female. “I just wanted to play a girl,” she said. “It wasn’t like I wanted to play a girl because I don’t get to be a girl in real life.”

Beginning to Transition — After arriving at Iowa State, she began meeting with Cara Armstrong, staff psychologist with Student Counseling Services. Through her meetings with Armstrong, she was introduced to a doctor in Iowa City.

Prell and her doctor met twice before deciding to begin hormone therapy. After frequent visits in the beginning to ensure there were no negative side effects, Prell now visits her doctor once a year.

“I remember the first month, when I was pretty much a roller coaster when it came to emotions. … I felt I couldn’t control them,” she said. However, she was pleased with the softening of her skin and the development of breasts.

“Physically it was a little painful,” she recalled. The development of breasts made her chest sensitive and tender.

The summer after her freshman year was a turning point for Prell. She had already begun taking hormone pills. Over the summer, she had an internship with a theater company and began working to train her voice.

With a background in theater, she thought adjusting her voice would be an easy task, but it proved difficult.

“When I first started talking in this voice … it was essentially talking like a monotone robot, because I couldn’t go up and down without losing it,” she said.

Eventually she perfected a higher voice and no longer has any problems varying her pitch.

As she entered sophomore year, she began attending classes as Sophie instead of Gaylen, with the exception of one class. She had an interview with the Iowa State Daily, but had filled out the application as Gaylen.

She decided to attend the interview as Gaylen, but didn’t have time to change her clothing before her next class. Because the class was small, she was forced to attend it as Gaylen for the rest of the semester.

“It was really challenging, really frustrating … it upset me,” she remembered. “I tried very hard to keep an attitude about it that it was only for a semester, it was only for an hour … I guess I had forgotten, really, how to act as a boy.”

Transition Nearly Complete — She began living full-time as Sophie in the spring of 2008 and legally changed her name shortly after. She recalls the people at the driver’s license station not knowing how to go about processing her change. 

“They would look at me funny and then they would go back and talk to each other — conferring on how to handle the situation,” Prell said.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s Standards of Care describes the transformation as a three-part process. It involves “a real-life experience in the desired role, hormones of the desired gender, and surgery to change the genitalia and other sex characteristics.”

Prell has completed two of the steps, as she has been on hormones and living as a woman for more than two years.

The real-life experience is an important step in the transformation process. It allows individuals to evaluate how well they will function as a member of their desired gender. It also assists in determining how best to continue with the  transition.

For Prell, the next step in the process is a series of surgeries.

While she is unsure in what order she will complete the surgeries, the three she will have are thyroid chondroplasty, to reduce the size of her Adam’s apple; breast augmentation; and sex reassignment.

Most insurance plans do not cover any of the costs associated with gender transitioning. This is the case for Prell, and the estimated cost of her three surgeries is $25,000.

In an attempt to fund her surgeries, she took an additional job and started a savings account. Managing her money has been difficult. She remembers purchasing movies or video games instead of putting that money into her savings.

“It’s a constant stress to think about how much you’re going to have to save and how long is that going to take,” she said. “Even with a good paying job, $25,000 is a lot to save.”

The Production — From the beginning, “Dialogues” has been a fundraising idea inspired by Penny Rice, director of the Margaret Sloss Women’s Center.

Penny learned about the cost of Prell’s surgeries through her partner, Dan Rice, academic adviser for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and adviser for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Ally Alliance.

“I started thinking of myself, my children, my friends, and what if we had to do that,” Penny said. “How awful would it be to have to pay such high medical bills to become who we are?”

Penny introduced herself to Prell after a February 2009 performance of “The Vagina Monologues.” She told Prell that she wanted to help her raise money to become herself.

“I don’t know if it’s a gift or a burden, but when I have information I have to do something with it,” Penny said of her desire to help Prell. “I can’t just know that there is the need or this situation or this possibility for improving someone’s life.”

During the last several years, the Women’s Center has successfully produced “The Vagina Monologues” as a fundraiser for the Assault Care Center Extending Shelter and Support.

“It doesn’t feel like a lecture, and it’s a little bit easier to hear because you’re entertaining as well as educating,” Penny said.

The success of “The Vagina Monologues,” as a fundraiser locally and in educating and entertaining people,  inspired Prell and Penny to present transgender issues in a similar manner.

Prell contacted LGBT organizations nationwide asked for people willing to share stories. Responses came in from Texas, Michigan and New York. Prell compiled the stories, as well as adding two of her own and a heavily influencing a third.

Each of the nine stories within “Dialogues” shows a different aspect of life as a transgender individual. The topics cover everything from the first time cross-dressing to an individual’s first sexual encounter after sex reassignment surgery, and the violent situations some face.

Prell considers herself lucky in regard to violence. She has only had one minor instance.

After a date she told the man that she was transgender.  He got upset, slapped her and shoved her up against her car. She fell to the ground.

“I essentially felt a little bit trapped ever since then,” Prell said. “That situation really helped me realize that I don’t have that freedom to just go to a party or a mixer and just kinda flirt with people … I can’t do that safely, I have to be very careful and safe about that.”

In order to protect herself, Prell makes it a point to tell any romantic interest up front that she is transgender. She has also not ruled women out because, “girls don’t freak out as much.”

Both Prell and Penny expressed the desire to “entertain and educate” members of the community about transgender issues.

The Maintenance Shop has donated the space and staff for the performances. All proceeds from the event will benefit Prell’s transformation. In addition to ticket sales, Prell also hopes to be able to copyright and market “Dialogues” for production by other organizations.

As the opening of “Dialogues” draws near, Prell said about one-third of the time she is depressed and fearful that the event will be a failure; another third of the time she is frantic with everything that still needs to be completed, and the rest of the time she is overjoyed in what she has created.

“Individuals who are transgender, who are transitioning, who are somewhere between these two boxes we put people in, are still people,” Penny said. “And they have hopes and they have dreams and they have desires and they have needs … they’re just humans. And we have more in common than we have different.”

Resources

For students who are transgender or unsure of their sexuality, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Student Services office offers several resources.

The first is a “transgender spectrum gathering group,” called Fluidity.

“Individuals who fall along the transgender spectrum can come, meet, chat … and get feedback from other people who are on various stages of the transition process,” said Brad Freihoefer, coordinator of LGBTSS.

LGBTSS also assists with name and driver’s license changes.

“We will assist getting students to where they need to be,” Freihoefer said.

‘Dialogues’

7 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday

2 p.m. Sunday

$20, $12 for students, $12 for everyone during Sunday matinee

Maintenance Shop

Tickets are on sale now at the Maintenance Shop Box Office or by phone at 515-294-8349