Finding Lara: From the Other Side, accurately tells the biography of my third Cousin Chris’s life story. These writings have challenged me as an author, it required me to step out of the safe place of spiritual writing and into the dark corners of rape and child abuse. These writings contain both sexual and disturbing events that took place in Chris’s young adult years. I have taken measures not to use offensive words, but in some cases, thoughtful kind words cannot describe the sexual abuse Chris and many wiŋkte have experienced. Later in Chris’s life he would meet an atypical group of women and men who reached out to Chris, where he found peace of mind and balance in his life.
Chris was born a wiŋkte (wink-tay; a Lakota word for hermaphrodite) The human hermaphrodite is not a true hermaphrodite, (being both male and female) The medical field refers to this condition as being Intersex. As a wiŋkte Chris would experience what it is like to live in a society that looked down on people that are different. Where traditional Lakota people treat the wiŋkte as being sacred; non-traditional people see them as only being gay. Both Chris and I understand being wiŋkte is not a choice, it is a condition one is born with, having two souls, one male and one female, or vice versa. If a wiŋkte chooses to be a part of the gay or lesbian community, it is by choice.
In closing, both Chris and I believe a large number of Transgender people are in fact, wiŋkte. Through these writings, it is our desire to help those people who are suffering with gender identity, to find peace and balance in their souls, before they begin unnecessary hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgeries.
You will discover who Lara is, and when and how she came into Chris’s life; from that day on, they became inseparable allies.