In Wyoming, he's tough enough to be a Sissy - latimes.com

Talk about cajones...

Sissy Goodwin is out shopping. He's on the hunt for an industrial-sized wrench for a home handyman project along with two special somethings: colored hair bows and a pretty new dress — preferably red, size 12.

He walks through a mall, a linebacker-sized figure in a pink skirt, lacy yellow blouse and five-o'clock shadow; a gold lamé purse slung over his shoulder and a white bow affixed to his receding gray hair. The 67-year-old college science instructor looks straight ahead, ignoring the stares and the catcalls.

"Boy, you're cute," says a middle-aged woman, who then laughs derisively.

In a hardware store, a man shakes his head in disgust. Another asks, "Is it a prank? A joke?"

Back in the car, the object of such scorn puts on pink sunglasses adorned with a tiny red plastic bow. "I got them in Reno," he says. "Aren't they cool?"

Goodwin is a cross-dresser in the Cowboy State, a place known for its big-buckled outdoor ethic and intolerance of alternative lifestyles. It is the state remembered for the death of college student Matthew Shepard, who was tortured and killed in 1998 because he was gay.

For most of his life Goodwin has lived a compulsion — one that at times has made him cry and embarrassed his family. But he found out long ago that he can't stop himself.

Cross-dressing is widely considered aberrant behavior even in the most liberal big cities, but out here in the nation's least-populated state, the practice is almost unthinkable. For decades, Goodwin has endured a profoundly hostile environment. He has stood up to bigotry and has begun to make a difference.

Goodwin isn't gay; he's been married for 45 years and has two adult children. As a young man, he was a rodeo cowboy who rode bulls bareback, a free spirit who never shied away from a fistfight. The former aircraft mechanic loves to drink beer, play golf, throw steaks on the grill.

What sets him apart, he says, is what he calls gender independence: He just likes to do most things in a dress.

In Wyoming, he's tough enough to be a Sissy - latimes.com