Life begins at 60

Documentary tells the unusual story of
transgendered senior LeAnna Bradley

By SHERI ELFMAN

LEANNA BRADLEY HAS HAD a difficult life. The transgendered
activist and founder of the organization "Stop Hate Now" has suffered
through many lifetimes of pain.

Born Donald Daryl Alfred, Bradley says that even at the
young age of 3, she knew something wasn’t right. She didn’t address that
"something" until years later, when at the age of 60, she had a sex-change
operation.

Eight years later, the Wilton Manors resident is about to
get her 15 minutes of fame. Last week, Forever Films, a New York-based company,
arrived in town to film a documentary about Bradley’s life. They filmed
Bradley at New Moon, a popular lesbian bar, and at Bradley’s home.

"They’ve already done documentaries on transgendered
young girls, so they wanted a senior," Bradley explains. "Someone with a
horrific

IT’S ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to imagine even going through half
of what Bradley has gone through in her life. A male cousin molested her when
she was a little 8-year-old boy. If that wasn’t bad enough, her school life
wasn’t any better.

"I was bullied," she says.

When Bradley turned 15, she decided to take control of her
life and went into the National Guard.

"I wanted to be one of the boys," she says.

But things didn’t get any better for Bradley. In fact,
they took a turn for the worse. At age 19, while in Philadelphia, she was beaten
and raped by three "professional thugs," she says.

"I was left for dead at the Philadelphia airport," she
says. "A woman found me and brought me in to the hospital."

Bradley later found out that her attackers were
professional killers who, just six months prior to her attack, had killed two
sailors.

"That’s what the FBI determined," she says. "That
started the negativity in my life."

AT AGE 24, BRADLEY married a woman, but the marriage only
lasted 90 days.

"That turned into a fiasco," she says. "She left
me."

In her late 20s, still trying to live her life as a man,
she married a woman who had three children. That union lasted 18 years.

"The marriage was a disaster," Bradley recalls.

But one good thing did come of it, she notes: They had a
son together.

Right after the divorce, Bradley began exploring
cross-dressing and looking into sex-change information.

"I began to do research secretly," she says.

Then, Bradley was sent to Vietnam for the war for 31
months.

When she came back, she began going to cross-dressing
meetings and took a job driving a bus and limousines.

"Over a lifetime, I’ve had over 56 jobs," Bradley
says. "Some lasted five minutes, some lasted five years."

IN 1983, BRADLEY WENT to a doctor and told him that she had
always felt like a woman. She was sent to the University of California at Los Angeles, where they were doing research with transgendered people.

"I found out, I had 15 percent more female hormones than
male hormones," she says. "They did body scans on me, and I had some female
anatomy."

The news that she was intersex was alarming to Bradley, but
also made sense.

"I didn’t know what to do," she says.

After doing exhaustive research, Bradley decided it was
time to live the life she had always wanted to lead. At age 60, she finally had
the operation that changed her life.

It was definitely a new beginning for her.

"From zero to 60, it was all negative," she says. "I
didn’t know who I was or where I came from."

She says at first the change was daunting, especially since
it was all happening rather late in her life.

"At the age of 60, I felt like a little girl going
through puberty," she says.

THINGS HAVE GONE uphill for Bradley ever since making the
change. She began to meet others like herself, and with all of her accumulated
knowledge, she began to offer help.

"I’ve had a lot of support," she says.

She has given her support to others as well with her
"Stop Hate Now" program, which is a lecture series geared toward doctors,
social workers and teachers. She is also a local chairperson of the annual
Transgender Day of Remembrance. She started the local observance three years ago
with the help of the Sunshine Cathedral. The day is intended to raise awareness
about anti-transgender violence. Statistics show that transgendered people are
disproportionately the victims of murder and assaults.

"My goal is to help stop homophobia and hate in schools
and throughout the country," Bradley says.

The Gay & Lesbian Community Center of South Florida
recently recognized Bradley’s efforts at its "Stars of the Rainbow" event
Jan. 21 in Fort Lauderdale.

"It’s good to see my efforts are really starting to do
some good," she says.

She is very excited about the documentary and has high
hopes for it.

"There’s a very good possibility that in the next year
or two, if a producer picks up the documentary and runs with it, it could turn
into a film," she says.

http://expressgaynews.com/2007/1-26/locallife/feature/feature.cfm