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Photographs by
Jana Birchum
Dixie's voice is flustered when she talks about the night Fuller was killed. "I've been doing this a long time, and I can pick up on vibes," she hesitates. "But besides him [Coria] being quiet, I didn't get any at all." Dixie's recollection reveals a sadness, and that she might be haunted by the possibilities: that if she'd just done something differently -- if she had picked up on a vibe -- or had insisted Fuller go home with her -- none of this would've happened.

Apparently, Dixie's parents only learned of her involvement in street prostitution as a result of Fuller's murder. They gave Dixie an ultimatum: Cut it out or get out. The decision was easy: Her best friend had been murdered. "I don't hang out in the scene anymore," she asserts. "I am trying to live my life as a straight female -- not a transsexual who hangs out in the gay scene."

As for the rest of the community, Fuller's shocking murder has propelled Katy Koonce's Gender Continuum at Waterloo Counseling and Out Youth centre into a new alliance -- one that Koonce hopes will be a big step toward effective support for gender-questioning youth. "My group was really angry [that in accounts of the murder] he was called 'gay youth,'" she relates. "Sexuality and gender are different.

Fuller's body was cremated in early January because, according to Fuller's mother Kathy, as reported in the daily on January 14, "We couldn't have dressed him in a wig like a female, and it was the only way he would have wanted to be presented," she said. "We brought the ashes home. He's finally at rest."

© Jordan Smith 2000

Resources for the transgendered community are available in Austin Texas through Waterlooi Counseling 444-9922 and Transformations at 329-6699.