rhonda uselmann

Now why would a nice girl like Rhonda migrate from sunny Chattanooga to Wisconsin? Guilty on all counts!

When she was a man. You sure that's not still a man?

Guilty on all charges, and a botched reassignment surgery. Yeesh!

I am assuming no surgery ever took place because that is strictly male.

Gag me with a spoon. Too fugly to be a woman...Too fugly to be innocent. Hang him by his privys.

You know who's even more guilty than Rhonda? Her surgeon, and you know it.

To mumbley & a couple of others...

If she has had gender replacement surgery her genital area will be a woman's in all but the ovaries. Typically even a gynecologist has a hard time noticing until they investigate further or are told.

Gender replacement surgery for a male to female transwoman is at the basic form just that. Much of the male genitalia is used to give her the female genitalia that she would have had if she were born into the body that she identifies with. Because of the expense that is all she may be able to afford so she may not be able to have facial reconstruction or other forms of plastic surgery to give her a more feminine look.

Lezfemme - Don't you have to take a lot of estrogen and other hormones first? You'd think those would have had some femanizing (is that a word?) effect.

Jules;
IF the person is following the Standards of Care for Gender Identity Disorders that Harry Benjamin set up, yes. Same goes for the patient having a mental health therapist, living for a period of time in the "new"gender & actually firstly being diagnosed by a trained professional as being gender dysphoric. It is possible to get "the operation" without any of that even though finding a surgeon without running the gamut is hard. I have no knowledge of what Rhonda did or didn't do. I just know that it is possible.

The thing to remember though is that there are a lot of biological women that are still in their birth gender that have issues just like what Rhonda exhibits. One thing that so many grasp onto is the sensationalization that surrounds a transperson running amok in this way. If she had been born female & done this I bet we wouldn't be here talking about it. It would possibly never leave her hometown newspaper.
Back to the feminizing through hormones... Think of PMS. A transwoman can experience the very same mood swings, rampant emotions, & just plain crabbiness if her hormone balance changes due to missing dosages or at times when her hormone replacement therapy has been changed. Again, I have no knowledge directly, it just could be part of it. Also an important factor & perhaps the most important. She was drunk. Having no other knowledge of her particular details, I would venture a guess that was actually the root of the problem.

Lezfemme - I get your sympathy for Rhonda. That's cool. It's just the nature of the article. It's all supposed to be based on appearances, not circumstances. These types of posts are to be expected.

Just short of that, thank you for the education. Sounds like you may have walked parts of the path Rhonda did (gender identity, not assault with a decorative sword). Doesn't sound easy. If I'm wrong then sorry for assuming.

And as I look, my ads are now Warrior's Cove (self defense) and Jessica Simpson in the movie "Private Valentine." LOL!

DownCrisis;

The main reason that I have taken the time to share here is that I believe in social justice issues. Rhonda's case came to my radar & when I ran an internet search I ran into a link for here. The fact that a site called Weird Universe chose to pick up this story is quite telling. Someone doesn't have to be a transperson to see that there are a lot of people who marginalize someone because they are gender variant any more than it would take someone who isn't a person of color to recognize racial prejudice. The fact that "These types of posts are to be expected" still in our day & age exemplifies the fact that our society has a long way to go before we truly become a nation with liberty & justice for all.
I'm not understanding your references to the advertising???

I don't think gender replacement is weird in the slightest. Some people are just born askew and need to get that fixed.
What I do find weird is that even if she could not afford facial surgery it would seem more likely that she would have worked more at looking female rather than to continue to look exactly like a man.
I also question the hormone therapy aspect because as a man he was a convicted violent felon. I can see where changing your gender would not alter the violent streak in you.
I question whether this person actually had the surgery. In Wisconsin a transsexual can get their name changed with ease as long as they don't bring the TS subject up. If they just say they are unhappy with their name then it goes through. I would be interested to know if her birth certificate was changed as that requires proof of surgery.
I do feel for this person on the whole gender side of the story, but I do NOT feel any sympathy towards her in regards to the stabbing. I don't care who you are, hormones are not an acceptable to stab someone with a decorative sword.

True, dead ugly woman, decorative sword....it's a winner!

No one is being marginalized due to their gender. The initial post was because of the mug shot (crazy eyes, bad hair). That's what it's all about. If anything, it is a glorification of this person's statistical chances of having ALL the circumstances. Had Rhonda been Rhonda all her life, she would have still ended up here for the mug shot. Statistically speaking this could have happened to a lot of people. History of domestic violence and a propensity for blades makes it a little more specialized in the numbers department, but still kind of common and would be here for the "Didn't you see this coming?" factor. The use of the decorative "Excalibur" sword as what was closest to her ups the statistical improbability of it happening to anybody (unless you live in my house, 14 swords of various functionality, 4 of which hang right over the couch). Now take all that and tack on the gender reassignment and you have odds Vegas wouldn't touch. Our opinion of guilt or innocence for Rhonda never hinged upon her past life as a man, merely the way she looked when the photo was snapped.

Now to the practical side of Rhonda's story. If I were Troy and knew of Rhonda's history of violence and bladed weapons, I would have made myself a chainmail shirt and at least some chainmail boxers and worn them pretty much 24/7 (excluding bathing, unless it was aluminum but that has its own draw backs). The impact of "Excalibur" would have bruised, but it would have cut down on the chances of getting cut. But that's just me and a half a dozen or so friends I have.

Let me explain the ad reference. On this site there are Google ads and they are triggered (somehow) by the content of the article. I thought it was funny that a self defense school and a movie starring Jessica Simpson would be what would come up rather than the "Become a police officer" and "Search criminal records" ads I have now.

OK, winding down this rambling. I don't think that anyone here at WU, our wonderful guides to the strange and unusual (Alex, Chuck and Paul) or any of the readers and posters mean any disrespect to any of the many people we are passively exposed to. In fact, I think many of us feel some sympathy towards a great many of them. If we wanted to just point and laugh, we wouldn't be here so much. I know there are a great many articles I relate to in minor ways. My greatest goal in life is to get to the end of it (in maybe another 90 - 100 years) and only appear in the comments section, not as the article du jour.

Am I the only one who finds it amazing that WU keeps getting visits from people who know these offenders personally?