Not Brandon’s Nebraska

For this year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance, I wanted to highlight this story out of Lincoln, NE, and one aspect of it in particular.

For many, the word “transgender” calls to mind the murder of Brandon Teena in Humboldt in 1993, an incident that inspired the 1999 Academy Award-winning film Boys Don’t Cry.

Fast forward almost two decades, however, and services offered at a facility in the same city where Teena was born could have saved his life.

“If Brandon were going through today what he went through back in the early 1990s, he’d still be with us,” says Ryan Sallans, health educator at Lincoln’s Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, 2246 O St. “One of the reasons he left was lack of support in Lincoln.”

The journalist has Jamison Green on record, saying the smart things he is known to say, but honestly, folks: this is progress. This story made me so goddamn happy this year.

Brandon, to you!