MONDAY, DECEMBER 4,2006 WWW.KANSAN.COM VOL.117 ISSUE 73
THE STUDENT VOICE SINCE 1904
PAGE 1A
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
PROFILE
Trista Taulu, Emporia senior, is one of about 40,000 transgendered people in the United States who have undergone sexual reassignment surgery. Born male, Trista dressed and lived as a woman for three years before undergoing the transformative surgery in 2002 in Phuket, Thailand.
Ryan McGeeney/KANSAN
One woman's journey through sexual reassignment surgery
"I remember I felt like I was a girl with a growth between my legs. A really, really disgusting growth."
Trista Taulu studies the feminine image she sees reflected in the mirror of her hotel room in Thailand, the hazel eyes and the waist-length hair. For most of her life, she felt like a woman. For three years, she's lived as a woman, dressed as a woman, looked like a woman.
During this sleepless night four years ago, 9,000 miles from home, she still occupies the body of a man. But by the next afternoon, her penis and testicles will be gone, transformed through sexual reassignment surgery to a functional vagina.
For Trista, 28, a KU senior from Emporia and one of the 40,000 transgendered people in the United States who have undergone sexual reassignment surgery, the journey from male to female featured difficult stops along the way: donning dresses as a boy in Gurnee, Ill.; fueling her mother's irie by cross-dressing as a teenager in Emporia; being taunted and spit upon by high school classmates; suffering beatings in the barracks while serving the National Guard before being discharged after showing up for drill in a white dress; and at her lowest point, slashing her wrists in her apartment bathtub. Ironically, only two years after those cuts healed, she says a surgeon's scalpel made the cuts that, for the first time, made her body match the woman inside.
—Trista Taulu
SEE ON PAGE 7A
"Some of them called her an abomination to God. But we made an active decision to try and get over it."
— John Thomas,
Trista's uncle
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© 2006 The University Daily Kansan
Fashion takes a fairy tale twist
ARTS
Vanessa Pearson/KANSAN
'Alice in Wonderland inspires designs
Andrew Shirk designed a collection of outfits that represented his perception of the "twisted underlying theme" of the fairy tale "Alice in Wonderland."
BY DARLA SLIPKE
Sarah Schmidt, Marysville senior, models a design by Andrew Shirk, Wichita senior, on Saturday.
The notion "we are all mad here," that was expressed in the fable by a cat, was Shirk's inspiration for his designs. The outfits, each representing characters from the tale, as well as Shirk's memories and liberal views, were modeled in a fashion show Saturday night in the ballroom
y
at the Kansas Union.
discovered that Alice in Wonderland wasn't what he thought it was as a child.
"People are crazy when you go in depth," he said.
Shirk spent 10 months making the outfits, which he hand dyed and embellished with embroidery. He used the colors black, blue, green and purple in his designs.
Shirk played with size and volume on his outfits to represent Alice shrinking and getting bigger, which he said was important.
"We played on that to give people the illusion that they're in this total other world where everything's bizarre," Shirk said.
A 7-year-old girl who represented the shrunken Alice, wore a dress with over-sized puff sleeves that were bigger than bowling balls.
SEE FASHION ON PAGE 4A
ARTS
Crowd gets into act at Vespers performance
The orchestra started softly with plucking stings slowly growing to a crescendo, as it played Johann Strauss" "Kaiser Walzer, op. 437 (Emperor Waltz)" to a nearly packed auditorium Sunday night at the Lied Center.
After the waltz and an a cappella Heleliyan, John Paul Johnson took the stage to welcome everyone to the 82nd annual Holiday Vespers, presented by the University of Kansas department of music and dance.
BY BEN SMITH
The event, themed "Joy to All the World," featured the University's Symphonic Choir singing a mixture of traditional holiday songs and world music accompanied by the KU Symphony Orchestra and occasionally audience members themselves.
Johnson, director of choral activities, took the stage early in the performance and asked the audience to take out sheets of music they had been handed along with their programs.
The chapter is sending an assortment of toiletries, magazines, calling cards and gift cards to 14 army battalions. Each care package contains about 20 of each item and will be distributed among battalions averaging between 50 and 100 people. A Beta Theta Pi alumnus and current U.S. Air Force Academy officer suggested the philanthropy to the KU chapter earlier this semester.
Wittler said that the Beta Theta Pi chapter, 1425 Tennessee St., has been working on the project for the past month, and that students, alumni and businesses all contributed to the $4,500 of donations. The Hawk, 1340 Ohio St., donated $800 to the project, in addition to donations from several other local businesses.
"I'm going to ask you to first stand up," Johnson said.
SEE VESPERS ON PAGE 4A
"The soldiers over in Iraq and Afghanistan already get care packages," Jacob Wittler, Wichita sophomore and Beta Basics philanthropy co-chairman, said. "But a lot of them lack the necessities they really need that can be easily overlooked."
》 GREEK LIFE
BY MATT ELDER
Beta Theta Pi is making everyday items unique this holiday season. The fraternity is finishing up its "Beta Basics" philanthropy, collecting $4,500 worth of donations this semester to send to American troops overseas.
Fraternity assembles holiday care packs
SEE PHILANTHROPY ON PAGE 4A