DesMoinesRegister.com features a two part piece, From Larry to Lauren, on one woman’s transition.

Walk backward through the shadows of Larry Jansen’s 57 years, and you find a path dotted with the typical moments of Iowa life: Marriage. Children. More than two decades as parts manager for a Sioux City farm equipment company. Years of afternoons and evenings playing sports with his son.

Walk further, and the road winds past two years of Vietnam-era Army service.

See the trophies from dozens of hill-climbing motorcycle races. Note the Boy Scout badges, and the empty bottles that mark decades of quiet alcohol abuse.

Relatives cite these markers as proof that Jansen was a man’s man. But to really understand Jansen’s present, one must go back to the beginning, to a house in Anthon where a 10-year-old boy sits on the floor of his mother’s walk-in closet. He is wearing her blouse, her skirt and a face full of tears…

From Larry to Lauren: An Iowan’s story (Part 1)

From Larry to Lauren: New identity, new life worth the cost (Part 2)