Opinion ID: 2365387
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Defendant's Social History Sheila Fairchild

Text: Sheila Fairchild is a licensed social worker and the principal investigator for the DYFS unit of the Public Defender's Office, and testified on behalf of the defense. She interviewed defendant on eight separate occasions for a total of twenty eight hours. Fairchild compiled a social history based on her interviews with defendant and thirty-five other individuals involved in defendant's life, including family members. Fairchild's report included the following findings. In 1957, defendant was born a biological male, named Glenn Nelson, and was the second of four children. [1] Defendant's mother said that defendant continuously cried every day for approximately ten weeks when he started kindergarten. Defendant's kindergarten teacher reported that he was an emotionally disturbed child. During defendant's teen years, Nelson became increasingly reclusive, eliminating all interpersonal relationships in his life except that with his mother. One childhood friend said that he went into a shell as high school approached, and defendant's brother called him hermit. He had a problem with bed-wetting, for which his father nicknamed him Uriney. To stop the bed-wetting, defendant stated that he would tie a string around his penis and put plastic wrap over it. Mocking his fear of public restrooms, his father also called him Mabel. Defendant was extremely self-conscious about his appearance and was unhappy about having male genitalia. Family members stated that defendant became more of a loner, isolated from the rest of [the family]. In high school, Nelson recalled being constantly picked on. Defendant's high school principal recalled that Nelson usually ate alone in the lunchroom. Defendant recalled enjoying photos of nude women, fantasizing that he was one of the women in the pictures. His identification with women intensified as his psychological condition deteriorated. Defendant began shaving his legs and rummaging through Goodwill bins to find ladies' underwear, which he would put on when he got home. By the time he was twenty-six, he could no longer picture himself as a male. One year later in 1984, Nelson began thinking about sex reassignment surgery after reading about a doctor who performed that surgery. Defendant traveled to Colorado twice in 1986 to talk to a sex reassignment doctor, Dr. Stanley Biber. The doctor advised defendant to start taking female hormones. In that same year, those around Nelson had noticed his changed behavior. He began wearing army fatigues to his job at an auto-parts warehouse. His employer stated, I knew he was disturbed. That year defendant also was robbed at knife point in Philadelphia, which prompted him to purchase a handgun. In 1987, defendant was arrested for possession of a weapon and dum-dum bullets and resisting arrest. The presentence report indicated that defendant stated that he fell in love with his gun. Defendant received probation and was ordered to undergo psychological evaluation. Defendant's co-workers noted his fixation on suicide. Defendant's former manager recalled him as an eccentric person obsessed with suicide, and a supervisor at a later job stated that Nelson spoke constantly about suicide. In 1988, defendant's mother found a suicide note that stated that he was sick of his life and he decided to find out if death had anything better to offer. Subsequently, defendant was committed involuntarily to a Camden County psychiatric facility for nineteen days. The following year Nelson began preparation for the sex change surgery, but the persons with whom he consulted voiced concerns about his mental health. The electrolysis technician felt that defendant was unstable and referred him to a specialist in gender counseling. Defendant applied for sexual reassignment surgery in 1989 and began attending transsexual support groups. He began to see a certified sex therapist, Dr. Barbara Anderson, to fulfill the counseling requirement for surgery. He also began estrogen treatment. In 1990, defendant told Dr. Anderson that he felt like a big empty eggshell, and that he wanted to look like a woman, but not be a woman. Shortly thereafter, defendant underwent breast augmentation surgery. Despite being alienated by family members, defendant appeared happier. However, Dr. Anderson concluded that defendant's severe psychological problems remained. Even though he did not feel like a woman trapped in a man's body, which according to Dr. Anderson is how sex-change candidates should feel, defendant completed the sex change in March 1992. Nelson encountered severe harassment on returning to her warehouse job after her sex change operation. Specifically, the warehouse's officer manager stated that the other employees avoided Leslie whenever possible, ridiculed her behind her back[,] and the really bold and curious ones would ask her questions about the operations and one even asked Leslie if he could feel her breast implants. Defendant left that job in May 1992 and pursued her desire to become an exotic dancer. She was hired by an organization that contracted with go-go bars. However, when she was sent to dance, customers would reject her because of her clumsiness and their realization that she had been a male. Her failures as an exotic dancer continued through the next few years, as she received countless rejections. Defendant's booking agent said she reacted to her dancing failures with depression, which worsened as Nelson continued to fail as an exotic dancer. In 1993, defendant began to prostitute herself. She wrote another suicide note to her mother, stating she was tired of living and that it would have been better if she had never been born. She said she even felt like a failure at suicide because she could not work up the courage to kill herself. In 1995, she wrote a suicide note to a married man who had been a customer, confessing to him that she was a transsexual. She wrote that she had felt suicidal for a long time, that she was filled with self-hatred, and that she did not see any hope for the future.