Songbyrd: Becoming She

Caisie Breen started out in life as a male. In early childhood, he developed a keen taste for music, which would come to serve him later in life as a buffer against his neighborhood bullies. His adolescence was shaped by attempts to repress the feminine characteristics that so often made him a target. This struggle was further complicated when he became a political leader for the Christian Right. Much later in life, he was able to let down his defenses, allowing him to discover She. Then, in her fifties, she had to undergo emergency open heart surgery. She awoke a new person. Her senses, her ability to feel, see, and hear were magnified to levels that couldn't be explained. A lover of music all her life, she suddenly couldn't be musically satiated and began a nonstop quest, collecting songs for her personal collection. Because she had waited so long in life to come out, there was a long struggle trying to become her authentic self, full time and in public. She needed more time than many to accept her newly discovered identity and wondered: would she ever find peace and freedom in being herself?