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Transgender woman presented as male for her open casket funeral

Transgender woman presented as male for her open casket funeral

TWIN FALLS, Idaho — Friends of a transgender woman who died last month from an aneurysm say they were shocked when family members presented her as a man for her open casket funeral.

Jennifer Gable
Jennifer Gable Facebook

Jennifer Gable, 32, who worked for Wells Fargo in Meridian, Idaho, had been living as female for the past few years.

But friends who attended her open-casket funeral say they were disgusted to find that she had been presented as a man – dressed in a suit, with her long cut off, reports The Miami Herald.

Even Gable’s obituary erased all evidence of her gender identity, and referred to her using only her birth name and male pronouns:

“Geoffrey Charles Gable, 32, Boise, passed away suddenly on October 9, 2014 while at his job at Wells Fargo Bank. He was born in Twin Falls on January 27, 1982 to Anthony Clark Gable and Lori Ann Walton. Geoff and his brother, Steven, were raised from toddlers by their maternal grandparents, George and Joan Walton…”

Meghan Stabler, a board member of Human Rights Campaign who previously assisted Gable when she began her transition a few years ago, said there was “no mention of the woman she knew she was and had lived as for several years.”

“Just erosion of her identity and an old photograph of how the father perceived her to be,” Stabler told the Miami Herald. “I only knew her online. She reached out to me a couple of years ago when she was in transition. The usual: What do I need to worry about at work? Am I going to be OK? Is life going to be better? Can you assure me everything is going to be OK?”

Stabler says the incident stresses the “importance of having a will” and after-death directives.

“She had done what she needed to do legally to be seen as her authentic self. Her father erased her identity either though ignorance or arrogance,” said Stabler.

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