Speaking out: Family and friends describe Tacy Ranta as "fearless" and it was this characteristic, perhaps, that led her to be an activist for transgendered people.

One day this autumn, a Maryland citizen walked into the Motor Vehicle Administration's Frederick branch carrying a driver's license marked "M" for "male." A short time later, that same person emerged from the office with a new license that carried the designation "F" for "female."

This event occurred with virtually no outside notice or fanfare. The individual wants to remain anonymous. Yet those belonging to one of Maryland's tiniest minorities -- at least the few "transgendered people" who have even heard about it -- believe they achieved a significant civil rights milestone that day.

What happened in Frederick is that a person who was born male but living as a woman was now officially recognized by the State of Maryland as female. And the state acceded to this request even though the applicant had not yet undergone gender surgery.

Some might regard the MVA's change in policy as bizarre; some as blasphemy. Yet to Tacy Ranta, it was a hard-earned triumph. Thirteen months ago, she was among those who paid a visit to Glen Burnie to propose this very policy change to Anne Ferro, the MVA's top official. Ferro listened to Ranta and two others in her party and then conceded the logic in their request. This fall, Ferro ordered the new policy put into effect.

"When we walked out, I remember Tacy looking at me and saying, `Oh, my God, this might actually happen,' " said Mark Scurti, a Baltimore lawyer who helped make the presentation that day. "Her eyes were filled with tears."

A few nights before Thanksgiving, a homicide detective stood in a light drizzle on a Belair-Edison street examining Tacy's belongings. Tacy's body lay crumpled nearby, only a block from her home across from Herring Run Park. She was face up and still in her work clothes -- navy blazer and skirt and red pumps to match her decorously drawn lipstick.

Understandably, the detective was surprised to find in Tacy's purse a driver's license issued to a man named Thomas Craan. It was a corollary indignity of

Tacy's murder. She'd been deprived of the chance to take advantage of the MVA policy change she herself helped bring about. It was on her to-do list when she died.

Hate crime

Tacy was killed by thugs in what was called a "crime spree." Five people were arrested and charged in her murder. Because Tacy was the only one to die in the series of carjackings and muggings, some transgendered people believe she was the victim of a hate crime. According to this thinking, Tacy must have said something to her attackers in her bass voice, which she'd been unable to lighten even with voice lessons. They killed her, some of Tacy's friends believe, because they realized she was a transsexual.

The detective on the case, Irvin Bradley, doesn't think so. He believes Tacy was murdered -- a single shot to the chest -- because she resisted the robbery. Nevertheless, according to Bradley, one of her assailants asked the shooter why he had shot "that lady."

"The other said, `That was no lady, that was a faggot,' " Bradley says.

By all accounts, Tacy would have been disappointed by that remark. Not angry. She was too equable for that. She also would have been saddened by this newspaper's story reporting her death, the one that used male pronouns in referring to her.

"She was," says her minister, David Smith, "very much a lady."

Which is not to say she was a pushover. Family and friends often use the word "fearless" to describe Tacy. For her, that meant not only living as a woman but publicly advocating for anyone's right to live as the opposite gender. It also meant traveling on foot, bus or bike all over her hometown, day or night. "She would say, `I have God with me wherever I go,' " says a close friend, Ava Chandler.

Tacy's transformation into a transsexual (the preferred term of those who are living full-time in the opposite gender, possibly including physical alterations) followed a common pattern. It was only after Thomas Craan reached his 40s, after his second marriage fell apart, that he started to fully embrace a new life.

Jessica Xavier, a friend of Tacy's and another transgendered activist, says it is not unusual that transsexuals such as herself and Tacy only come out in middle age. "Around 40, many of us say, `We've got this one life to live, one chance to be happy. We can't waste it any more living a lie.' "

Xavier describes the transformation as less a choice than an imperative. "It becomes this force that builds in you and you can't live without it anymore. Most of us look at it as life and death. After all, if it were a choice, who would choose to face universal disapproval and discrimination?"

An active life

As Thomas Craan, Tacy's life had been outwardly conventional, though with a sad start. His father died when Tom was 2. The family lived in Highlandtown until he was was 10, when his mother remarried and the family moved to Hamilton. Everyone marveled about what doting parents his mother and stepfather were. Tom did not lack for love.

As an adult, his life was full and commendable: Church-goer, stepfather, foster parent, Boy Scout leader, swimming meet judge, election day judge, chess player. When he and his second wife lived in Bolton Hill, he was a regular performer in the annual follies. To most acquaintances, the most unusual thing about him was his fascination with science-fiction fantasy.

Described by friends as a mathematical wizard, he graduated from Polytechnic High School and won a scholarship to the Case Institute of Technology (homesick after a year, he returned here to finish his education at UMBC).

He taught public high school a year and worked for a time in the family business, a television repair shop on Eastern Avenue. In recent years, he made his living as a self-taught software engineer. Tacy was working for a Greenbelt firm at the time of her death.

On the wane

About three or four years ago, Thomas Craan started to disappear entirely except in his work life. Tacy began showing up regularly at the Stagecoach, a downtown bar where she took country-and-western dance lessons. She dressed tastefully. She favored winter colors, although she painted her nails pink. She let her gray hair grow long, but usually wore it up in a bun. Her legs were her greatest vanity. She wore short skirts to show them off.

Like many transsexuals, she wasn't able to do anything about her height. She was 5-feet-11, but, because she always carried herself so erect, she seemed even taller.

"She wanted people to see her as a woman," says Chandler. "She didn't want to stick out in a crowd and she didn't."

Tacy switched from her family's Lutheran church in Highlandtown to the Metropolitan Community Church, which caters to a congregation that is largely gay bisexual or transgendered. For the last two years, Tacy was the clerk on Metropolitan's board of directors.

Around the same time, she became a fixture at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center downtown. It was there that she became co-founder of a transgender support group, known as Tran*Quility.

She had a knack for picking out and nurturing the most vulnerable attendees. "At the meetings, she always had a sense of who was new and needed to be protected and always reached out to that person," says her friend Tammy Lippert.

She also threw herself into politics. She became one of the most recognizable leaders of It's Time, Maryland! a transgendered political organization closely aligned with Free State Justice, a coalition that also represents gays, lesbians and bisexuals. For several years, Free State has pushed in Annapolis for the passage of legislation relating to hate crimes and anti-discrimination. Tacy testified on behalf of the bills and met with individual legislators.

"She was always incredibly brave in stepping forward and trying to help others," says Del. Sharon Grosfeld, a Democrat from Montgomery County who co-sponsored the bills. "By testifying she undoubtedly put herself at risk, as doing so would put any transsexual at risk because they have no rights under the law."

The handling of the bills caused friction within Free State Justice. In each of the last years, the organization has agreed to strip the legislation of language specific to transgendered people to improve its chances of passage.

But the bills never have passed, anyway and the tactics left hard feelings. "They tanked on us," Xavier says bluntly. Many transgendered people abandoned politics. Tacy was one of the few still willing to make the political fight.

"She had this really charming naivete that to be a change agent, you really have to believe your voice counts."

The transgendered activists had better luck with the MVA, where the standard was not to change the gender on a driver's license unless there had been "gender reassignment" surgery. But to qualify for that surgery, doctors usually require the patient to first live for an entire year in the opposite gender.

At the meeting with the MVA in November 1998, Tacy, Xavier and the lawyer Mark Scurti argued that the MVA policy put transsexuals at risk, forcing them to carry identification as one gender while living as another. Transsexuals were often hassled when they presented identification that conflicted with their appearance. Some were even jailed.

The MVA's Ferro was impressed by the argument, an MVA spokesman said recently, and referred the matter to her staff. Months later, she ordered the policy change.

Leaving Thomas behind

Tacy would have qualified for the license change. Some time in the last two years, she began undergoing hormonal treatments to alter her body. She was having painful electrolysis treatments every week to remove facial hair. Friends say she was planning on gender surgery.

About a year ago, she virtually obliterated Thomas Craan's existence. She had her name changed in court, and began showing up at work as Tacy. Now she was Tacy everywhere. She had prepared people at her office for months, and even showed up at Halloween as Tacy.

"We would talk frankly before she did it," says her friend Tammy Lippert. "There was never a time when she said she was scared or couldn't do it. When it came to being a transgendered woman, she was the one to follow."

She was more fortunate than many others. Her transition to Tacy did not cost her important relationships. Her marriages were long over by the time she became Tacy. She had an older brother and an elderly mother who both accepted her decision. Only last week, her mother, Ellen Craan Smith, remembered her son as "a beautiful woman."

Those close to Tacy say she was happy in the weeks before her death. Her transition at work had gone well. She'd been a big hit on Halloween at the Stagecoach when she had shown up as Eve. And, in the fall, she'd had a whirlwind romance, her first as Tacy. Though, the relationship ended, Tacy appreciated its significance.

"A week before she died," said Chandler, "while we were talking on the phone, she told me what a wonderful feeling it had been to find someone who loved her back."

A good night

The last night of her life, she was in high spirits. After finishing work, she had taken the train home to Baltimore as was her custom. (Tacy didn't like driving.) She grabbed a bus for Mount Washington and her weekly electrolysis appointment, then took another bus home to Belair-Edison. She got off on on Belair Road, five blocks from her rowhouse. But before walking home, she decided to duck into an Irish pub on the corner where she sometimes got a bite to eat and a Harp's beer. She ran into a friend, Rich Price, who is Ava Chandler's fiance. Tacy had introduced them.

Cheerful as usual, she told Rich how much she was looking forward to going to her high school reunion two days later.

"You think anyone will notice me?" she asked.

Confused, Rich said, "Why do you say that, Tacy?"

"Because," she answered, "I went to an all-boys school."

She was laughing as she walked out the door, heading home.