Susan Marie Baumler, 63, passed away on Wednesday, February 16, 2022 at Lancaster General Hospital surrounded by family. She was nothing short of a living miracle, having survived metastatic breast
that i would ever have any desire to return to living as a male. more than 20 years ago, joseph kirchner s mind was made up. if he couldn t live his life as a woman, he didn t want to live at all. i was like a speeding locomotive headed towards my goal. i didn t have any doubts at all that this was what i wanted. at 19 years old, with steely determination, he began the long journey to transform into a flawlessly beautiful woman. the process of becoming judy was intense. i started estrogen therapy at 19. after two years of estrogen therapy, i followed up with some facial surgery that helped to demasculinize, you know, things like jawline, chin, nose, forehead, to make them appear more feminine. judy chose undeniably female 38-ddd breasts to fit her
they re working on those with psychoanalysis, reparative therapy, and we all share, you know, how things are going along our journey. but ultimately, joseph says, it was not religion or the organizations he became involved with that made him decide to switch back again and try and live a new life. yes, i was a spiritual person. i was seeking, but i wasn t going to allow my faith or nonfaith in a god that may or may not exist i wasn t going to allow something like that to be a decision-maker for me. my decision-making process was that i was not happy. it didn t feel like a genuine life. it wasn t who i really was. i felt like i had been pressured, under duress. growing up as a child with all the torment, the harassment, the name calling, i went into hiding.
and it s great to be who i am now. but as much as joseph accepts where he is today, he admits that life is not easy. his beloved grandmother is gone. he s estranged from the rest of his family. and living as a gay man with female anatomy makes it difficult to find a loving relationship. you know, i can t do anything about my body the way it is. you know, it s not like i can go out and get a penis transplant or whatever, and i wouldn t want to. my body works just fine. i just need to find somebody who likes me the way that i am. looking back, there are few regrets. if anything, joseph feels grateful for the 20 years he spent as judy. it sounds weird to talk about judy as sort of like another person, but i am grateful for the time that judy was in my life. because judy did keep me alive when all hope seemed to be lost
couldn t be happier to be back living life as a man. it s good to be free of those 38-ddd boobs that were slanging around all the time. god. we all have our own style of presenting our gender. you know, between masculine and feminine. and i have found a way that i m able to be comfortable with myself now. the key may be the fact that joseph has accepted a lot of things he once denied the first time he was a man. most importantly, being gay. he s even started a gay-lesbian transgender student group on the campus of the college he now attends. you know, i ve matured so much now, and i have so much education about what it is to be gay and to have my own self sense of pride, my self esteem.