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"EDITOR'S NOTE: This story is part of an in-depth special report on transgender issues. For full coverage, visit http://www.timesunion.com/transgender. ALBANY - Kym Dorsey churned up Madison Avenue, rounded a corner and teetered slightly as she negotiated the cracked sidewalk in 4-inch stiletto heels. She brushed back shoulder-length hair extensions and tugged down on an oversized satin blouse that covered the upper portion of shapely thighs squeezed into black leggings. Her honeyed, breathy voice rose an octave as she approached a clump of men on a Grand Street stoop, drinking cans of beer concealed in brown paper bags. \"Hey, fellas,\" she said. \"Yo, Kenny. Whassup? Where you been?\" asked a gray-haired man. He set down his beer, stepped uncertainly off the stoop and embraced Dorsey in a bro hug, clasped fists followed by a shoulder-to-shoulder sidelong bump. Dorsey pulled away quickly from the greeting, looking uneasy. The two shared a few pleasantries, while the other guys looked down with silent scowls. Nobody on the stoop muttered the \"f-word,\" but it seemed to hang in the air, a two-syllable kick to the gut of homosexuals. Dorsey heard the hateful word, faggot, often growing up in Arbor Hill as a slender, feminine boy named Kenny. He liked to dress with the androgynous look of his musical idols Michael Jackson and Boy George. He showed no interest in sports and played with dolls. \"I've been called faggot for so long I just ignore it,\" Dorsey said. \"What's really hard is living back in the 'hood where I grew up and having people call me Kenny all the time. That's how they knew me. I used to correct them and tell them that I'm Kym. But I let it go now. I'm tired of having to explain myself.\" The words of her kindly grandfather, who consoled the adolescent boy after taunts and occasional beatings from classmates, rang in Dorsey's ears as she talked about her tortured transgender journey: \"It ain't about what they call you, baby. It's what you answer to.\" For the better part of a decade, Dorsey, 48, has answered to Kym. But she remains married as Kenneth to a woman from Ivory Coast who came into his mother's hair salon and began a flirtation while Dorsey cut her hair. In hindsight, Dorsey feels the three months they lived together as man and wife in 1997 was a well-calculated play to earn her U.S. citizenship. The two have long been estranged, but occasionally see each other around town and shrug off their brief, gender-bending relationship. \"I loved that she was ladylike, feminine and African,\" Dorsey said. \"She came on to me and I agreed to marry her because my mother liked her and I've always wanted to please my mother. Getting married was a way for me to conform to society. I've felt like Kym all my life, but Kenny has been the frontman so I can get along.\" \"We always just let Kenny be Kenny,\" said Dorsey's older sister, who asked that her name not be used. She described an effeminate little brother whom siblings assumed was gay. As she began expressing herself as a transgender woman and living full-time as a female, they grew to accept that, too. \"He was born male, but he always acted like a female. It was like she was born in the wrong body. I didn't question the transgender piece even if I can't wrap my arms around it,\" she said. \"Nobody wishes this on themselves. I'll love her and support her whether I completely understand it or not. I just hope one day the stigma against transgender people will go away. We just want to see Kym in a healthy, loving and caring relationship.\" \"Kym's life is Kym's life. I just want her to be happy because she's been depressed for quite a while,\" said Dorsey's younger sister. \"I can't explain it. We were all raised the same way. I just hope everyone can accept her as a woman like her family has.\" In the eyes of the law, she's still a man. Dorsey has changed her name and switched gender on her driver's license, but she cannot change her birth certificate from male to female because she has not undergone gender reassignment surgery, the final step in a transgender's transition. She recently backed away from a plan to have a sex change after relocating to Los Angeles for 14 months. Dorsey has taken the initial steps of a transition, including psychological counseling, hormone therapy and dressing and living as a woman. She described a process fraught with depression, a suicide attempt, sexual assault, physical abuse, unemployment, isolation and the difficulty of finding an understanding partner within the African-American community - in which a prevailing macho culture pushes her romances underground. As a teenager, Kenny was active in the dating scene and was popular with girls because of a flair for fashion and an animated personality. But at 18, a girlfriend confronted him in bed after he faltered when a make-out session heated up. \"You're not into this,\" she said. \"You're thinking of boys.\" \"That freed me,\" Dorsey recalled. He had a string of relationships with bisexual men, but never felt fulfilled and had misgivings. \"I felt like a woman trapped in a man's body.\" On her deathbed in 2007, Dorsey's mother spoke cryptic words that were music to Dorsey's transgender ears: \"You need to be who you were meant to be.\" Since then, she has taken drugs to block male attributes and enhance female ones while cementing the shift from Kenny to Kym. In the past several years, her partners have been almost exclusively black. She dated one openly gay man, while the others identified themselves as straight. They wanted sex behind closed doors, but drew the line at public displays of affection or commitment. \"You're my perfect girl. If you were biological, we'd be together forever,\" one of them told her in what became a familiar break-up line. She has been looking for an apartment in a better neighborhood and in the meantime has decorated her tidy space with a feminine touch: colorful abstract oil paintings, a glass-topped coffee table, African handicrafts and a CD collection strong on gospel music. Dorsey recently dated a black man in his mid-20s who had served time in prison. He was affectionate while they were eating dinner, watching TV or listening to music at her place. But once they stepped outside the street-level one-bedroom, he refused to hold her hand, walked several paces ahead and pretended not to know her if he passed acquaintances on the street - while she quietly endured the abuse. \"It's all on the down-low with black men,\" she said. \"You should see all the black guys who hit on me when I'm out at a club. But that doesn't fly in the 'hood. I have to deal with angry reactions from black women, too. I try to explain to them I don't want their man. But their man sure wants me. I've had sex with men and then we go out on the street and I'm lucky if they introduce me as their cousin or stepsister. I'm tired of the lies.\" None of the drama or unconventional lifestyle surprised her family or caused them to withdraw their unconditional love. \"We love her no matter what and we won't stand by letting someone pick on or torment her,\" said her older sister. \"I'm tired of seeing Kym hurt by these guys who creep around and only want to be with her on the down-low,\" said her older brother. \"I tell them to leave her alone if they don't have feelings for her. But they want all the perks and benefits and nice home-cooked meals and having Kym take care of them like a woman so they come creepin.' It makes me angry. \"I was kind of hoping she would have gone through with the sex change operation just to give her some peace of mind.\" In the fall of 2009, Dorsey bought a one-way ticket to Los Angeles, took her life's savings and was preparing to spend most of it, about $20,000, on gender reassignment surgery. \"I was going to reinvent myself out there,\" she said. \"I realized I could never be accepted as Kym in Albany because everyone I knew growing up was going to keep me in Kennyland.\" She volunteered with Friends of La Brea, a group that provides counseling to gay and bisexual men who are methamphetamine addicts. Many are HIV-positive. She did a few drag shows, but rebuffed offers to work as a prostitute. The high cost of rent took a bite out of her savings. She didn't make friends amid the bright lights of the big city. She felt lonely and depressed. She never went through with the sex change. She got cold feet, put it off and ran low on cash. She met a construction worker named Kevin on the bus. They went on dates, watched movies and after going out for a few weeks she invited him to her apartment and cooked him dinner. He attacked her in the kitchen; Dorsey struggled, but she was overpowered and was sexually assaulted. \"That's what I do to all my girls,\" the rapist snarled before he bolted. Dorsey called police and complied with a rape kit procedure. She was interviewed by detectives, whom she described as sensitive when it came to her status as a trans woman. An investigation is ongoing. Nearly broke, Dorsey returned to Albany last fall. \"I thought if I just got my vagina, I'd be happy and everything would be OK. I finally realized that's not really going to change anything,\" she said. But she conceded that she has regrets about not going through with the operation and would probably get the surgery if she saved enough money again. In recent months, Dorsey has worked at a hair salon on lower Central Avenue. She returned to the stylist skills she learned at a young age in her mother's salon after stints as director of a summer youth program, in a retail clothing shop, as a bartender and occasionally doing drag shows for money. In her 4-inch heels, she towers over customers in the salon chair. She chews Skittles incessantly, sings along to soul ballads on the stereo and is every inch a sassy diva with a wicked sense of humor and an easy patter. Her customers accept her as Kym. None of them calls her Kenny. \"Just let us live. Don't judge,\" Dorsey said between cuts and sets recently. \"So, I'm a woman living with a man's genitals. I was born with the wrong plumbing. Deal with it.\" Dorsey also leads a transgender support group at In Our Voices that meets at the group's Lark Street office. The young trans girls, most of whom are black or Hispanic and half her age, call her \"Mother.\" Two of them have grotesquely puffed-out lips and cheeks, looking as if they've been punched in the face. Instead, they've come from taking shots of vodka and shooting each other with syringes filled with black-market industrial-grade silicone. It's similar to the stuff used as a sealant and sold in hardware stores, mixed with baby oil or paraffin. The underground practice is known as \"pumping.\" Pumping parties are not uncommon among drag queens and trans women with limited means. Dorsey tried to warn them about the health dangers and potential medical complications, including reports of deaths, from their backroom doings. They rolled their eyes and shrugged. She went around the table and asked the eight trans women to rate themselves on a scale of 1 to 10, based on how they were feeling emotionally. \"I'm at a 2,\" a twentysomething Hispanic woman said. \"My boyfriend just left me. He wanted (a vagina) and I couldn't give him (a vagina).\" She tried to model maturity and self-confidence for the young women. \"I'm trying to empower them, to teach them about being safe. I want them to understand that being trans is about more than looking glamorous,\" Dorsey said. \"I'm free to be me and not to be society-conformed,\" she said. \"I'm happy because I'm living on my own terms. I want to instill pride and self-respect. You might not be like me, but I hope you respect me.\" Reach Paul Grondahl at 454-5623 or pgrondahl@timesunion.com."
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