Andy Coffey is a typical all-American Southern man. Born to a Southern Baptist preacher and his high school sweetheart, Andy grew up in Southern Indiana under the guidance of strict but loving parents.
As a young adult, Andy could swing a hammer, seal a pipe, and lathe a wooden post. He later worked in transportation and logistics management, moving throughout the Midwest wherever work took him. In his 40s, Andy met his love, whom I’ll call Lettie. Lettie was a staunch Christian woman, divorced with four children, and Andy became their protector.
When Andy and Lettie got married, Andy made a commitment to provide for Lettie’s brood. A family man to his core, it was a promise he kept through better or worse. Andy adopted all her children, and built a large Kentucky home that comfortably fit Andy, Lettie, her four children, their dogs, and Lettie’s two aging parents.
I met Andy when we were both young
I met Andy twenty years earlier in Evansville, Indiana, when we were both 19. I was an undergrad at a public university after I’d dropped out of a private Catholic Women’s College. When I first met Andy, he went by the name his parents gave him, “Ahndi.”
And, when I met Andy, he was a she.
In the annals of coming out stories, mine is short. I’ve written about my unusual childhood, and a bit of that helps explain what happened. More accurately, what didn’t happen: there were no tears, no recriminations about going to hell, no righteous family meetings, no ‘disowning.’ What happened, simply, was this: Ahndi knocked on the front door. My mom opened the door, then called out, “Sabrina, there’s a guy here to pick you up. I mean, it’s a girl.”
And that was that. My family didn’t care what I did or who I dated; freedom is a glorious advantage of living in mayhem.
I was smitten by Ahndi, not because of how she looked or dressed, but because she set her own rules. In a small southern town, in the early 1980s, she wore her hair slicked back, her breasts bound, and vintage men’s suits from the 40s: think wide ties and shoulder pads. She didn’t give a rat’s ass what the neighbors thought about a preacher’s daughter who dressed like a man. When she laughed, she threw her head back. When she sat, walked, or ate, she wasn’t dainty. I fell quick and hard.
A couple years later, I got a job writing swill for Republicans in the
State house. Ahndi and I packed every inch of her Chevy Impala with our Levi 501s and thrift finds, drove to Indianapolis, and started our lives together.
Life and youth eventually got in our way, but Ahndi taught me what life on your own terms really meant.
Trump and the Republicans are demonizing people I admire
As he demonstrated in his last speech to the UN, Trump interjects vitriolic attacks on transgender people into nearly every speech he gives, regardless of topic. During a recent televised rally, he announced that “(Democrats) want to cut your children. It’s unbelievable what they do. Your son leaves as Jimmy and comes home in three days as Janet, and they don’t even ask you.” This absurd lie is on par with accusing immigrants of eating pets.
While it is fair to protect women’s sports, Republicans are going much, much further, using a rock where a scalpel is required. Republican-led legislative and executive actions have restricted transgenderand intersex access to healthcare, limited their participation in public life, and stripped them of dignity and legal protections.
Republicans argue that minors are too young to make permanent decisions regarding gender identity, so, like women’s healthcare, they want the government — i.e., themselves — to make those private medical decisions. Right wing activists characterize gender-affirming medical treatments such as hormone therapy and surgeries for minors as “child mutilation” to other the children and vilify parents choosing treatment, as if gender continuums were non-existent, just like climate change and inflation.
Life and supplemental X chromosomes happen
I can’t hear Republicans’ ignorant transgender hatred without thinking about Andy.
I called him yesterday to make sure he was cool with me outing him in a national publication. He was. He knows Trump and the Republicans need scapegoats, vilifying both trans people and immigrants to keep MAGA hateful, locked and loaded.
He also understands that keeping voters enraged diverts their attention while Trump and his oligarchs rob the country blind.
Just before we got off the phone, Andy made a moan-inducing joke — a true dad joke — but this story is his so he deserves the last word. He told me with a chuckle that if the jackboots come for him after this is published, he hopes they deport him to Transylvania.
Sabrina Haake is a 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her columns are published in Alternet, Chicago Tribune, MSN, Out South Florida, Raw Story, Salon, Smart News and Windy City Times. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
