Standing 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighing in at 110 pounds, she walks into the lounge of the Lory Student Center countering the weight of a bulky black shoulder bag, which looks like it weighs half as much as she does.

But don’t get the wrong impression.  If there is anyone who can shoulder a load, it’s Scott, who at 26 years old has shared lenses with some of the biggest names in the photography business, and has scaled up to 22,000 feet on and around Mount Everest as a photographic assistant to National Geographic cinematographer David Breashears.

“People shouldn’t follow a specific pattern,” Scott, a senior journalism major, says, gesturing with her hands. “You should make your own.”

And indeed Scott has sewn an intricate quilt of connections and opportunities in pursuing her passion for photography.

Starting at her high school in Omaha, Neb., Scott began taking classes in the development and technique of photography, but according to her twin brothers Steve and Tom Scott, she always had a knack for it.

“I have a lot of memories of her always trying to take photos of us at different locations,” Tom Scott, 20, says.  A sophomore psychology major at St. Louis University, Tom Scott recalls how Scott would drive him and his twin to interesting places in order to set up the perfect shot.

“She would take us to schools or parks just to take photos,” Tom Scott says.  “For our Father’s Day present, she made us dress up and we each wore signs [that said], ‘I love you, Dad.’ She took us to a park and got photos of us all.  She was always into using [photos] as presents.”

Once she graduated from high school, however, Scott’s educational path became a bit erratic, and she temporarily abandoned her hobby.

Enrolled as a philosophy major until her sophomore year at Lake Forest College in Chicago, Illin., Scott didn’t like the college and transferred to Colorado State University in 2002.

Scott took classes at CSU until she was a junior, when she realized her love for photography and dropped out of the university for the Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, Calif. She graduated from Brooks in 2008 with a degree in Professional Photography, then returned to CSU to complete a journalism degree.  She is set to graduate in May.

“I didn’t think she was ever going to graduate,” says Steve Scott, a 20-year-old sophomore exercise science major at the University of Nebraska in Omaha. Steve Scott said he was initially unsure whether his sister would achieve much success.

“She kept changing her mind,” Steve says. “I kind of thought she would end up screwing up because she left, but she came back with two bachelor’s degrees, a trip to Mount Everest working with National Geographic, [and] these internships with huge companies in a short period of time.  She’s had more than I probably will in 10 years.”

Armed with an unusual talent and fierce tenacity, Scott journeyed across the country in order to gain experience with some of the world’s most renowned photographers.   Her resume includes internships at the Mark Seliger Studio in New York City, as well as the Norman Jean Roy Studio in Los Angeles, where Scott sharpened her skills as a photographic assistant.

Both studios are regular contributors to Vanity Fair and Vogue magazines, and Scott worked in the same space as legendary photographers Mario Testino, Annie Leibovitz and Patrick Demarchelier.

She also obtained career know-how from a 2009 internship with advertising powerhouse Crispin Porter and Bogusky in Boulder, a move that rounded out her already impressive knowledge of the industry.

“You really have to pick a specialization [in photography],” Scott says.  “[Now] I can do everything, so when I’m ready to specialize I’ll be ready to jump into it. I think I understand every part of the business.”

And it’s not that Scott is arrogant about her talents. According to her friend Heather Goodrich, 27, she just has a thorough understanding of who she is and what she can do.

“Steph is a really caring, thoughtful, precise and driven person,” says Goodrich, who is also the developmental advisor for College Avenue magazine and editor in chief of FS Life. “Steph’s work is real. No matter what she’s shooting she’s capturing the essence of what is being told. She is going to be really successful because she has incredible drive.  It’s insane how focused and driven she is.”

And sitting forward in her chair with her arms resting on the table, Scott does emanate a sense of order and directness.  Her light brown hair, striped with lighter streaks of blonde, is combed neatly into a thick ponytail that skims the middle of her back.  Her voice is low but her words are bold and quickly delivered, and she seems to catch every detail in the room with a glance from her sharp gray eyes – eyes that see a different view of the world which she translates from the lens of her Canon 5D camera.

“I love portrait work,” Scott says. “Getting to know people and seeing a side that they don’t normally express unless you have that intimate setting. Being able to create your own experience with people and express it is amazing.

“[And] the type of photography [that] can contribute toward a greater cause than enjoyment, [where] there’s more of a higher purpose to the work I’m doing. That would be ideal for me.”

It was this enthusiasm and work ethic that secured her the valuable internship positions and, ultimately, the pièce de résistance of her career so far: a six-week stint in the Himalayas documenting a National Geographic expedition with photographer David Breashears, whom she met while working in an outdoor retail store in Chicago.

Scott continued to e-mail Breashears about his work, and eventually he called her in the fall of 2009 and invited her to assist in his project.

“It was kind of agonizing because I was like, ‘s—, I’m so close to graduating, what do I do?’” Scott says.  “I went to all of my professors with the assumption that I wanted to let them know personally that I was going to have to drop out again and they were like ‘hey we’ll work with you.’  Everyone was so supportive and awesome.”

Scott arrived in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Oct. 14 of 2009, loaded with 12 bags of camera equipment for the six-person team involved in the project.  Then Scott, Breashears, three Nepalese sherpas and a few Tibetan porters drove to Xangmu, China, and to the Rongbuk monastery, which is close to the north base camp of Mount Everest.

“I was a photo assistant, so basically I was documenting David documenting glaciers,” Scott says. “The project was taking match photography from 1920s and 1890s photographs, and based on GPS locations we took pictures from the same spots those explorers were, and showed change.

“There are only one-fourth of the glaciers left, so there’s a serious issue in the Himalayas glaciers. All of that water provides for five of the largest rivers in Asia, so for the people whose livelihoods depend on that water, it’s going to be a huge issue.”

After thoroughly photographing the mountain region from the north side, the team intended to explore another 8,000 meter peak close in proximity to Mount Everest, but their permits were denied and they returned to Mount Everest, this time documenting glacial lakes forming on the south side.

“We kind of orbited around [Mount Everest],” Scott says, pointing to photos of the mountain on her laptop.  “We did the circle from north to south base camp – it was a dream I always wanted.”

In living her dream, Scott had to operate outside of her comfort zone.

“It broadened my horizons as to what my limitations are physically and mentally,” Scott says.  “Hiking for eight hours and having your lungs feel completely raw and getting to your camp and then realizing that you still have to hike [for another] two hours up to the photo point and then work—it’s nuts.”

Scott’s friends and family expressed worry and excitement about her opportunity, but were confident in Scott’s ability to endure the difficult conditions she faced.

“I was really nervous for her, but she’s tough and I knew she could do it,” Tom says. “From hearing some of the experiences she had, I guess I should have been more worried about it but she’s a tough and strong person.”

Scott’s boyfriend, Kelly Adair, 25, had only been dating Scott for a few months when she left for Nepal.

“I was concerned,” says Adair, a University of Colorado in Boulder graduate. “We were early on in our relationship, so it made our relationship a lot stronger from the get-go because we would correspond as much as we could via e-mail. It made me realize what she was going through just by the way she was describing the things that she was doing.  I knew how high she was going and how it can be very dangerous to do that.”

And though she says she would take the trip again “in a heartbeat,” Scott says the expedition was “the biggest love/hate experience” she has ever had and that it took a severe toll on her health.

“I got altitude sickness one night where I had to breathe myself down in the tent,” Scott says.   “I had a massive migraine – it was pretty scary.  It was too high for helicopters so it was kind of a mental issue at that point.  [I had to] deal with it. Altitude deals with you in funny ways. It slows your thinking [and] it slows your breathing. I felt deficient in every possible way up there. People are not meant to be that high.”

Also affected by the extreme altitude were Scott’s eating and sleeping habits.  According to Scott, she didn’t get much of either.

“You don’t eat up there ‘cause you’re not hungry,” Scott says.  “It’s a matter of really monitoring what you eat and what you drink.  I didn’t sleep at all up there. You can’t really sleep until the early morning hours.  You just kind of toss and turn.”

Aside from losing about 12 pounds from her already diminutive frame, Scott also had to cope with severe illness during the latter portion of the trip.

“I got so sick—the sickest I’ve ever been,” she says.  “I couldn’t keep down fluids but I also couldn’t keep them in.  I [was] just expelling all of my water.  I had to take medicine to keep the medicine I needed down.”

Once the team returned from Everest, Scott was able to receive the medical attention she needed, and she spent another week in Nepal recovering and eating pizza from a local Italian restaurant.  She returned to the U.S. on Nov. 23, exhausted but satisfied with her adventure.

“I think learning my own limits was the thing that I took away from it,” Scott says. “Knowing that my limits are limitless if you set your mind to it [and that] if you have no other option, you really can do whatever you want. Not many people have the opportunity to realize that about themselves.”

Once she was back in Fort Collins, Scott had to return to her busy life, which included working as a photography editor for College Avenue magazine and completing the assignments she missed while away.  Scott currently lives in Boulder and commutes to class three to five times per week.

“To shoot for National Geographic and to go to Tibet and to climb Everest in and of itself – each separate thing is incredible,” Goodrich says.  “But for her to do all of those together in college during [her] senior year with capstone courses, she’s incredible.  She really can do everything. I don’t know how she manages it all.”

On top of juggling her schoolwork, internships, various photography jobs and outdoor activities with Adair, Scott also finds time to reinforce a strong relationship with her twin brothers.

She smiles when she receives a text from her brother Tom and murmurs, “Tommy.”

According to both brothers, Scott is the glue that holds their family unit together.

“Both of our parents have been married a couple of times each, so it is what you make of it,” Scott says, shrugging her shoulders. “You can be super maladjusted, or you can count on what you have, so we just make a point that the three of us do what we do and always stay that way, and then everything else can circle around that if that’s the case.”

Every year for the twins’ birthday, Scott and her brothers go to a different stadium to see a baseball game together.  Scott and Steve are Red Sox fans, while Tom prefers the Yankees.

“Every cool experience I’ve had has come directly or indirectly from her,” Tom says. “Out of everyone in my life, she’s probably the closest person to me.  She helped me a lot growing up and was always there when I needed to talk to someone.”

And talk she does. But after a 54-minute interview, Stephanie Scott hoists up her black shoulder bag and pushes chair in under the table.  And all 5 feet and 4 inches of her, that has focused a camera with the industry’s biggest names and climbed part way up the world’s highest mountain, turns to go.  She still has things to do.

Photo by Garrett Mynatt

If Evan Vent took a seat next to you in class, you would never guess he had been homeless before. The sophomore natural resources major has an Apple laptop, presentable clothes, a head of brown curls tucked behind a bandanna and a relaxed demeanor.

Vent, 21, has lived homeless for brief periods of time since 2008, but he does not classify himself as homeless because he is able to find work and can afford rent for his house on Stuart Street during the school year.

“I would never even consider myself homeless. I’m not even in the same demographic,” Vent said. “[I’ve been homeless] just a couple of times, and not for extended stays, [unless you count living on] my friends’ couch for four or five months.”

Although Vent’s current living situation does not reflect the turmoil of a homeless life, his past encounters shed light on a different definition of the homeless population in Fort Collins. According to Zachary Penland, program supervisor of the Sister Mary Alice Murphy Center for Hope in Fort Collins, an estimated 3,000 people in Larimer County are considered homeless, but that does not necessarily mean these people are sleeping in the streets every night.

The definition of homelessness is simply farther-reaching than most people suspect, and encompasses a wide variety of situations.

“They’re a part of what we call the ‘hidden homeless,’” said Sister Mary Alice Murphy, a consultant on homeless services for United Way of Larimer County. “There are a lot of people doubled up with a friend and not paying their share of the rent because they don’t have enough money.”

Murphy, for whom the Murphy Center for Hope is named, has formed numerous initiatives to combat homelessness since her arrival in Fort Collins in 1983, including the area’s first soup kitchen and homeless shelter. She works part-time at the Murphy Center, a new institution where clients in need can find and receive help from the 13 non-profit organizations that offer services on its premises. With the help of community members, her latest project is converting the Winter Day Shelter, housed at Community of Christ church at 220 E. Oak St., into a year-round day shelter.

“No matter where you go, this problem is there, and maybe [it’s] hidden in some communities,” Murphy said. “It’s hidden in this one.”

Homeward 2020, a local organization with the goal of ending homelessness in the Fort Collins area, defines homelessness as “the condition and social category of people who lack housing because they cannot afford, pay for, or are otherwise unable to maintain regular, safe and adequate housing.”

The executive director of the organization, Bryce Hach, further divides the homeless into two categories, the episodic and chronic homeless. He describes the episodic homeless, who nationally account for 80 percent of homeless cases, as people living on the brink of homelessness who have to resort to it sporadically. The chronic homeless, on the other hand, account for only 20 percent of homeless cases but are the most visible demographic.

“The [hidden] homeless don’t put a sign on themselves saying ‘I’m homeless,’” Murphy said. “The stigma of being homeless is something they don’t want anyone to know and they’ll do anything to cover up.”

A study conducted in 2008 by Jamie Van Leeuwen, who has a doctorate in public policy and is the executive director of Denver’s Road Home, illustrates the ambiguity surrounding the homeless. The data indicated that 556 men, women and children in Larimer County were homeless. However, Penland said in an e-mail that the number is not an accurate reflection.

According to Penland, last year the Poudre School District identified over 750 homeless children in attendance. Considering statistics that almost half of those who are homeless are children, Penland places the homeless population estimate in Larimer County closer to 3,000 people, with the vast majority in Fort Collins.

“Fort Collins looks so great when people just go through it, and this is the soft underbelly,” Murphy said.

The reason that few people recognize this “soft underbelly” is that many of the homeless are episodic and nearly impossible to identify. The Colorado Statewide Homeless Count, a point-in-time survey taken in January 2007, said of the 15,394 homeless respondents, only 6.9 percent spent the night on the street. The survey lists eight stipulations that characterize a person as homeless, which range from sleeping in cars and public places to staying temporarily with family or friends while looking for a home.

Vent is certainly familiar with the episodic scenarios, as he grew up in poverty outside of Grand Junction, Colo., and has lived on the cusp of homelessness for part of his life. Throughout high school, Vent was the main caretaker of his two younger brothers and he worked after school and at night in order to support them.

In college, Vent lived in the residence halls and most recently in a house with financial help from his father. But during the summers, Vent receives no financial assistance and has resorted to a number of unusual accommodations for short periods of time: living in an RV on a friend’s driveway, a friend’s couch and even his 1974 Volkswagon Beetle.

Photo by Garrett Mynatt

But for most of the summer months, he lives without shelter by choice. A self-described “free spirit,” Vent abandons his belongings with friends and has hitchhiked throughout Colorado to Wyoming and New Mexico with other homeless people, partly to save money and partly for the sense of adventure and community he finds. He has slept in national forests and even on the streets of various towns.

“You meet some really cool people,” Vent said. “You really get to know people at the most basic levels because they have nothing left to lose. [The homeless] have nothing to begin with.”

This is clearly a controversial element in Vent’s life, as he has lived homeless out of necessity before, yet mainly by choice now. Vent realizes that people may not understand him deliberately living this way.

“I’m not out there saying [to the homeless] ‘I came out here to live like you guys for a little bit,’” Vent said. “That would be condescending to them.”

He instead attributes his decision to live with nothing not only as an unusual way to see different sites, but also as a desire to understand the realities of the world.

“I think we all ask ourselves [the] question [of], ‘What’s that guy doing out on the curb? What’s he thinking? Does he have family?’” Vent said. “I mean, you put yourself out there and the cold times roll around and [you] can’t imagine doing this for four or five more months.”

During these times, Vent received a dose of the reality that many who are homeless face every day, which includes the negative stereotypes placed upon them.

“You have to deal with that kind of mentality – just the typical stereotypes that people put on the homeless,” Vent said. “If you’re dirty and grungy looking, you’re [nothing].”

Murphy acknowledges that the homeless are often afraid to speak of their hardships due to the criticism they receive.

“[Homelessness] has a very negative stigma,” Murphy said. “It means you haven’t done your fair share, you haven’t worked hard enough. It’s judgmental.”

And though Vent has received kindness from strangers when he was in need, he has also witnessed the feelings of indifference that some people have toward the homeless. He recalls a bitter cold night when the temperature dipped below freezing. His friend’s van that they were staying in was stolen and they had to sleep outside in Fort Collins.

“The next morning, I went to shake him and he was frozen solid,” Vent said. “[He] had frostbite over 80 percent of his body. I was terrified. You’re looking at people walking in the street and you’re like, ‘Hey my buddy is hurting’ and people just shrug you off. Finally, someone stopped [and] took him to the hospital.”

Vent’s friend was released from the hospital a few days later and left Colorado to live in New Mexico. Vent has not heard from him since.

“He just kind of skipped out, which is what [homeless] people do,” Vent said.

Aside from the many hardships he has faced, Vent sees his encounters without shelter as a benefit to himself and others. He hopes to someday open a small outdoor supplies shop that would not only cater to his adventurous nature, but would also offer environmental classes and opportunities to underprivileged children, something he wishes had been available during his own difficult childhood.

Ultimately, Vent finds satisfaction in the fact that his time spent with homeless people has brought joy to all parties involved.

“Offering [to be] a friend for a day can change someone’s life forever,” Vent said. “You listen to someone’s story and try to understand. It changed my perspective on a few things.”

As for the coming summer, Vent is unsure about his plans but says he may live without a home for a little while. A trip to Estonia to work on a natural resources project never materialized, but he still hopes to visit Europe if he can.

Raquel Miller, a 23-year-old preschool teacher and nanny was also not homeless, but lived for two months in her 2000 Chevy Impala. Inspired by the plea for social justice in the book “The Irresistible Revolution” by Shane Claiborne, Miller decided to live in her car, a choice that rendered her homeless during February and March in 2009. While she had family in Livermore, Colo., which is an hour north of Fort Collins, Miller’s car could not make the drive, and she needed to stay in Fort Collins to work to save money to make repairs to her car.

“I wouldn’t even classify myself necessarily as homeless because I had a home, it just wasn’t very convenient to get to,” Miller said. “I did have some financial situations, but it wasn’t like I was at the end of my rope and didn’t have a home to go to because my parents had their home.”

Like Vent, Miller lived without a home for financial reasons and by choice to gain an understanding of the daily obstacles faced by the homeless population. She moved to Columbus, Ohio in March, where she will utilize her awareness of the homeless to serve meals and provide aid to them at the Better Way ministry, a homeless shelter and soup kitchen.

“I knew that [living in my car] was an introduction to what it’s like to be homeless,” Miller said. “While I knew I was blessed with a safety net, I also knew that this is just the beginning of helping people out of poverty and helping the homeless. This wasn’t just me trying to pretend [to be homeless] or have this self-righteous manner.”

Throughout her edifying encounter, Miller slept in the driver’s side of her car and worked during the day.  She would clean herself and put on makeup in the morning at convenience stores and rotate parking at apartment complexes at night.

Aside from her mother picking her up to shower on weekends because “it was a pretty dirty situation,” Miller never utilized any type of assistance.

“It’s really difficult to know what to do with yourself when you don’t have a home,” Miller said. “I couldn’t find anything on public showers, the public bathrooms are closed, parks are closed. It blew me away because I’ve seen plenty of homeless people in Old Town and I don’t know what they do [to stay clean].”

Besides basic hygiene and shelter, Miller missed a number of conveniences that can often be unappreciated in the setting of a permanent residence.

“When you [have] to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, what do you do? It’s hard to find a place that’s open 24 hours,” Miller said. “Sometimes I would park by the Alley Cat just so I could go to the bathroom at night or have light to read by. I never really thought about having no light to read – I’m such a huge reader and that had a really big impact on me.”

Safety was another concern, as Miller’s car windows were not tinted so anyone could see inside.

“It was hard at night [because] I was always worried a police officer would come up and be like ‘you gotta leave,’” Miller said. “One time someone tapped on my door and asked if I was OK.”

And of course, the ever-changing Colorado weather was a constant issue.

“When it snowed it was cold,” Miller said. “But when you had to [get out of the car to] go to the bathroom, you froze, just froze entirely.”

At the end of her two-month stint without a home, Miller had saved enough money to mend her car and afford rent. She credits the experience with opening her eyes to the challenges facing the homeless in Fort Collins.

“It’s something I would recommend to other people – it gives you a fresh perspective and appreciation for life and what really matters,” Miller said. “It was very much something I wanted to experience and I wanted to have a new realization for it [because] it’s such an issue. We have privileges but let us remember the people who don’t.”

Unfortunately, a rising number of local individuals and families are finding themselves without permanent shelter.

“The problem is getting worse,” said Daniel Covey, a case manager at the Murphy Center. “I’ve seen many families that are really on the trajectory of being homeless very soon.”

Covey assists homeless clients at the Murphy Center, and estimates that the average age of his clients is 30 and about half of the clients he sees are families.

“There’s a time when people can come in and we can give them a lot of resources to help them avoid homelessness,” Covey said. “But there’s sort of a point of no return where people come in and it can be very difficult to actually prevent them from being homeless, and I’m seeing more of those families than I would like.”

The Web site for the National Coalition for the Homeless cites a lack of affordable rental housing and a simultaneous rise in poverty as the key factors behind the increase, but Covey adds that unaffordable healthcare, the economy and a more competitive job market have all taken their toll.

“For people with mediocre or poor work histories, they really don’t get much of a chance,” Covey said. “I was surprised when I started working here how many of the homeless people have great and truly employable skills, but they may not have tools for their trade or they have employment gaps or a felony, so there are all these obstacles to them gaining employment.”

Another obstacle often overlooked is human nature itself. Both Miller and Vent attribute much of their homeless experiences to their own faults, especially pride.

Photo by Garrett Mynatt

“I hate handouts,” Miller said. “I want to earn what I have, and so I didn’t want to [sleep] at someone’s house all the time, I didn’t want to ask for a shower or whatever. Part of it is pride and part of it is just that I firmly believe that you earn what you work for and I didn’t have money to give them, so you find ways to make it work.”

For Vent, pride has been a longstanding issue, too. Even while supporting his younger brothers and in financial need, he was always reluctant to accept any charity.

“I had to realize that people helping other people is more of a gift to give than it is to receive,” Vent said. “A lot of homeless people do have pride, which is ironic, because when you’re begging people for money there is no pride there at all. Pride was my vice. Not asking people for help, shutting others out when they did want to help. And humbling myself in that way and just accepting from people when I am in need has been kind of a major obstacle in my life that I’ve overcome.”

Whatever the reason, the upsurge in difficult conditions has uprooted many people from the warmth of their homes and forced them to resort to unpleasant alternatives.

“The homeless and the problems that surround them are very multifaceted, with a broad spectrum, from the kid who is couch surfing at his friends’ houses to the homeless man standing on the street corner saying ‘will work for food,’” Murphy said. “If every single person took one aspect of helping the homeless, we could solve it.”

His laugh that sounds in the coffee shop is infectious. Not to mention the sporadic hand gestures, this somehow is just as much a part of the conversation as the words. The eyes from across the table are filled with wisdom, kindness and a longing for something more. 

Duff Norris blends in. Drinking coffee and taking the occasional smoke break, he doesn’t stick out in a crowd in his brown hoodie and short-cropped hair. But after a while, he stands out. He is loud, uses a surplus of expletives and tells jokes that crack even himself up. Although he describes himself as a closet extrovert, he is someone who you instantly want to be friends with.

Photo by Garrett Mynatt

“It is impossible not to know when he is in a room,” says Andy Stoll, the executive director for the LAMBDA Community Center in Fort Collins and Duff’s best friend. “The positive energy he provides to each space he is in is contagious.”

However, behind the smiles and chuckles, Duff has been through challenges in love and acceptance that have brought him to this point in his life. At 25 years old, Duff has made a decision to change his life, and transition from the female he was born as to the masculine person he wants to be.

As a student studying communications at Front Range Community College and an involved advocate for LAMBDA, Duff has embraced his transgender status, and is breaking apart the alphabet of gender classifications.

“I’d find the category I knew I could fit into”

Since a young age, Duff did not feel he fit in. As a kid, boys were allowed to run around with their shirts off while Duff’s mother told him to keep his on. When his brothers were growing facial hair and muscles, Duff got breasts. Even though he loves glitter, makeup and dressing up, Duff never felt he fit into the socially accepted gender boxes of just female or just male.

“I fall into the gender queer category – I never grew up with a sense of gender,” he says. “I never was ‘I am woman’ or ‘I am man.’ Gender always equated to me as your physical body – I have these parts, you have these parts, thus we are different. I wanted to be able to run around with the boys and wrestle and play football … and you do that with your shirt off.”

Those awkward teenage years were even more awkward for Duff. For his junior prom, he wore a periwinkle beaded dress with dyed-to-match strappy heels, and just a year later, went to another formal dance in slacks, a purple shirt and tie, and a top hat.

Both times, Duff and his brother Chris had a great time swing dancing. The first time they were a cute brother/sister couple; the second, they were the whisper-assumed gay couple. That was just a part of trying to find his gender identity, Duff explains.

“There came a point where I knew I wanted to date girls and not boys,” he says. “I wanted to wear combat boots every day to school, and my dad told me I had to keep my long hair… but I wanted a Mohawk. Then there were the things that caught my eye – there was a point in time where very clearly it took off that I wanted to model myself after dudes I knew.”

For Duff, the search to find his identity meant rebelling against more conservative parents, and at other times, suppressing his wants for the “boy things.” As Duff describes it, there were some obvious red flags for his parents that he was not going to be the classic “Republican wife,” but there was a balance of the masculine and feminine. Duff played football and wrestled, but he also went through cotillion and can waltz and fox trot, but “cannot lead for the life of me.” Yet for the first 18 years of his life, he just “fit.”

“Some of those classic boy things that happen [during puberty], I had that feeling of jealousy,” Duff remembers. “I’ve been wearing men’s boxers and boxer briefs since I was 12, but I want to see muscles and facial hair in the mirror.”

“I don’t want to be a woman, but I want to be pretty”

Only recently has Duff started to create a more concrete definition of his transgender status along with what gender identity and roles mean to him. There are four areas to gender: biological sex, gender identity, gender roles and gender expression.

Biological sex is the sex assigned at birth, and as Duff puts it, “They go ‘girl’ or ‘boy.’ And every once in awhile you get, ‘uh oh, ambiguous.’” In contrast, gender identity is what an individual identifies as, a gender role is what someone plays in society, and gender expression is how someone physically presents him or herself. A key point Duff makes is that gender is more like a continuum, with female on one end and male on the other – and a whole range in between.

“Those are all different things, and they can all get really messy,” he says. “Every person has them, and it’s a personal, natural thing, no matter what anyone says.”

Duff describes himself as assigned female, identifies as male-ish and very female in most of the ways he goes about things, and presents himself as more masculine to society. But as Duff starts to transition, he is struggling with gender expression, because when it comes down to it, he feels he is expected to be butch or masculine and not like the “pretty things.”

“I like glitter and makeup. It is a totally guilty pleasure. And I am insanely sentimental,” he says. “It was always like, ‘how does that fit with transitioning and becoming a dude?’ And it dawned on me like six months ago that it doesn’t have any say in my gender.”

Photo by Garrett Mynatt

Duff has completed his psychological evaluation to proceed in transitioning, which culminates in a letter that says he is not mentally ill. Apart from legally changing his name, the first step is taking testosterone, which will help grow facial hair and deepen his voice, but Duff is leery about the emotional rearrangement due to the testosterone.

Duff says he has “always liked the way I am on the inside, just not on the outside,” and if he is on an emotional roller coaster, he will stop the hormones. Leslie Groves, one of Duff’s friends, says that even though Duff is going through a challenging time, he is always positive and has a great view on life.

“He is so strong with what he is going through in figuring all of this stuff out,” says Groves, the marketing intern with LAMBDA and a senior journalism and technical communications major at CSU. “He is an amazing guy to be around who is trustworthy, dependable and who has this unique ability to make people feel good about themselves.”

Although he is social, Duff faces a dilemma in finding a job, because when answering honestly, Duff feels, “My transgender status is none of your f******* business.” But when his legal documents still say female and hasn’t been able to have chest surgery due to financial difficulties, he is not able to advance his situation.

“I don’t have to reveal my trans-status to anyone I don’t want to, but I can’t be stealth. I am not in the category of ‘let’s just hide and blend,’” he explains. “On average, transfolks aren’t as well promoted and do not make as much money. [They] don’t get certain jobs, and I’m in that exact boat right now of ‘where do I go wanting to be seen as a male and still having a chest [combined with what it says on my legal documents].’”

According to Stoll, 33, the difficulty that surrounds the trans-community stems from the “reality of the binary world we live in,” and that society can then turn fearful and violent.

“There was a law passed that made it illegal to discriminate on the orientation of sexuality and gender identity,” Stoll explains. “But there is still the reality of people’s lives, and you don’t know who you are going to meet in the restroom. In this society, if you eliminate the fear and enable them to see the humanity of someone, it is hard to then be violent to them.”

Duff’s long term plans are to continue working with LAMBDA, where he is the current vice president on their board, and to work with at-risk youth, which can be rocky for him down the road depending on how accepting parents and society are of him.

“I want to work with [at risk- youth] kids … and I have something to offer the general public children and not just queer children,” he says. “I shouldn’t have to just stick to queer organizations to feel safe in my job, and sometimes that feels like a requirement.”

Groves, 22, says she believes that people are different and everyone has a different perspective on other people, but when “you narrow it down, people have to have an understanding that human beings are in a constant state of change and you have to be open to that. Not being open is what causes this friction.”

“My dating preferences changed as I changed”

One area where Duff has learned not to make sacrifices is with dating and relationships. Although he acknowledges he liked women, Duff still tried dating men because it became a “stress response” to avoid questions. Instead of finding what really fit, Duff tried to sleep with men who fit into the masculine category that he was actually seeking for himself.

“I had an amazing way of not fully recognizing [what I wanted] for what it was. I was very good at trying to change my sexuality,” he says. “But there were a lot of things that I was attracted to that I thought I wanted in a man, but it took me a long time to realize that is what I wanted personally. And I tried to sleep with men who fit into that category and it is really not OK, it feels really wrong.” 

In these instances, once the clothes came off, Duff felt he was expected to play a feminine role, which meant being submissive and eager to please, and if he wanted to take charge, it meant playing the vixen.

“That is probably the most alienated from my personhood I have ever felt,” he says. “It was funny because the first dude I slept with I lost my virginity too, and it was funny because both [of the men I have slept with] probably knew they were sleeping with a lesbian. I thought, ‘This is so wrong and not right.’”

Finally, around 19, Duff had an intimate relationship with a woman and, “I got to be a lot of those things that I found attractive in men and I got to do a lot of those things for a woman that I always assumed I wanted from a man, and all the pieces finally clicked,” he says.

Since then, Duff has been in several relationships with women he calls vastly different from one another, and it has been a process to discern his identity when coupled in a relationship. Just over a year and a half ago, Duff ended a long-term relationship with someone who he considered his wife, and the fact that he was searching for his “queer community” has helped him continue to discern who he is interested in, even though it leads to a lot of questions.

“How do I date girls? Do I date lesbians, because I am really not in that category anymore, or do I date straight women, because not many are really OK with the trans stuff?” he says. “And if I want to date men, how does that work? Do I date gay men?”

Although Duff was not as attracted to men in the past, his feelings have changed as he has transitioned more. But his dilemma only gets more complicated.

“I’m going to become a man so that I can date men, and then become a drag queen and dress as a woman?” he wonders. “It is funny because the thought of having sex with a man as a woman is blah, but having sex with a man as a gay man, yeah, I so totally [can go for that]. It doesn’t put me in an uncomfortable gender box.”

Duff is currently dating another transman, which is an entirely different experience for them both. The best part is Duff has “never had a relationship before this where somebody wants to sleep with me because of who I was, not because it kept the relationship equitable.”

Photo by Garrett Mynatt

“I’ve always had some difficulty communicating what I want, especially around sex. When somebody just really wants to sleep with you because you are hot in their mind, talking about sex is a lot easier,” he says. “I don’t see feminine anymore [with my current boyfriend]. I am dating someone who is masculine, and that is new for me because I don’t have to be in that feminine box. It is sex and it is intimacy, there is so much more freedom for me to just be who I am.”

In the long run, Duff hopes that physical body changes will help the transition process and the feelings that are produced in a relationship. Chest surgery will definitely be in Duff’s future, but he does not feel he should have to transition into a passable male.

Currently, the lower body surgeries available for transmen are limited. There are two main options, one, where after the intake of testosterone, the clitoris is enlarged, the urethra is rerouted and prosthetic testis can be put in. But according to Duff, “You look like an underdeveloped infant.”

“Basically your No. 1 sexual organ is covered up by this piece of skin,” Duff explains, and adds he has never been really interested in lower surgery, partially because “I have walked around for 25 years without something between my legs and I think that might freak me out a little bit.”

The other option typically leaves the person sexual dysfunctional. After the first process is done, a full phallus is made with skin graphs and placed over the enlarged clitoris. Although a person is more passable, there is still a lot of scar tissue and the penis always stays mostly flaccid, thus the person cannot typically have intercourse. And with both surgeries, a full hysterectomy can be performed. 

“Plus, I am not sure I ever want to be that passable because I am really not comfortable in other people assuming I am something other than a trans-man,” he adds. “I am not a man. That is not my story. That is not the way I was socialized. That completely negates everything I have gone through and fight for. I will never be totally comfortable with ‘I am a hetero-man’ or ‘I am a gay man.’”

Stoll agrees that one of the unique things about Duff is that he is not hyper-masculine or hyper-feminine, and that is completely contrary of what trans-folk are.

“Duff owns what he is,” Stoll says. “Duff is going to be one of those people who naturally will have an impact on other people and change their lives.”

“It is just a basic human right”

Aside from his career plans, Duff’s biggest change he wants to someday impart on society is helping transpeople feel nurtured and have accessibility to the most basic needs people have: going to the bathroom.

“As a transperson you end up talking about restrooms way too much. I am in public a lot and restroom usage at any public place is uncomfortable at best,” he says. “We treat our prisoners better than we treat transfolk. Prisoners have their own restrooms in their cells. Not that they are always separated, but they have basic access to restrooms that are safe. Transfolk don’t. They don’t have a place that is safe or that doesn’t out them.”

Although Duff does not feel massive amounts of money should be spent to accommodate one student, options of non-gendered bathrooms should be available. And ultimately, it comes down to safety. Duff does not feel safe using the men’s restroom since he is in the early transition phase, but “it is exhausting to everyday get chased out of the women’s restroom.”

For the most part, Duff feels “safe a majority of time in the fact that I am probably not going to die today and I am probably not going to get beaten up, but there always is that outside chance.” Thus he has memorized where all of the 7-11 gas stations are and a majority of the single-occupancy bathrooms in the areas where he hangs out.

“Ninety percent of the time you are OK, but that other 10 percent of the time is kind of questionable and that scares the crap out of me,” he says, and remembers the time when he used a men’s restroom and was left in there scared because another man had turned the lights off after saying something offensive to Duff. Although nothing bad happened, the fear of something as simple as using the bathroom still exists.

“Whether you agree with my choices or whatever your opinion is, I don’t get to tell you that you don’t get to use the restroom in peace. It is a basic human need that is a basic thing that everybody should have access to without being harassed,” Duff says. Whether you are the conservative at the liberal conference, we don’t give you shit in the bathroom. It is a basic service I wish everyone could be educated about.”

A goal Duff has is to create an alliance sticker or identifier that businesses will post to let transgender people know it is a safe place to “pee in peace,” and then that allows anybody, gay community or not, to support those businesses that have that.

“You know people don’t walk into the restroom with a card that says I am liberal and I believe in trans-issues or I am pretty sane and safe,” he adds. “And I never know who I am going to get in that situation.”

Whether it is employment or safety, Duff feels a more education in the community would go a long way. Basically, he says, we are all human beings, and “I am not asking for your approval, I am asking for your support.

“I deserve an OK paying job even if I am a [transgender] person, and I deserve to eat and have housing,” he adds.

As for acceptance in the Fort Collins community, Duff feels that the area is better than most, especially since it is sandwiched between areas where hate crimes have occurred. Both LAMBDA and the Colorado Progressive Coalition have been working on a census to help track members in the GLBT community and help get more identifiers on current forms because “transgender folks get colds and break arms, but if you don’t keep statistics on people you cant identify problems,” Duff says.

Although there are still hurdles to overcome, Duff is ready to face them head on and make changes not only in the community with the acceptance of trans-people, but also for himself.

“I want to continue to explore everything about life. I think that experience is just amazing. I know there are some things that are uncomfortable to me and I want to get comfortable with them, such as my peer group and friends being more comfortable with me being more feminine,” he says. “I want to have facial hair and I want to be able to put glitter in it. I want to make that transition of hormones and surgery but also be more comfortable.

“I guess I want to change some things about my body and my expression, so there is still more work to be done. And I think every person goes through that throughout their life. Life happens, and a [trans-person’s] experience isn’t all that different in a lot of ways. We are not the freak shows that everyone thinks. I think it will be a huge adjustment for a lot of people I know to see me in a dress. And I am just me.”

Abbasi’s first love was music.  He has taken a lot from the world of classical and jazz and been able to apply it in his art.

“Because of my knowledge in music, I learn harmony, contrast, composition [and] color,” he says with the hint of a smile.

Abbasi turned 13 years old in 1979, the year of the first Iranian revolution. He remembers the whole atmosphere of Iran changing.

“Many people at this time were involved in politics,” Abbasi says. “I have a lot of memories from that, but I’m very happy that I have seen everything and this gave me a lot of experience.”

Because of a war between Iraq and Iran, Abbasi didn’t go to college right after high school.  Seven years passed before he chose to study graphic design at the University of Tehran.

Apart from music, his family acts as a major influence on his life and professional work. He has a wife and two sons, 8 and 11, who live in Tehran.

“You can see some of my work comes from my family,” he says. “One of my book cover designs is a portrait of my mom from a young age. Another poster is a painting from my youngest son. This makes me happy [to involve them in my work].”

Abbasi works full time as both a professor and graphic designer, something that can be tiring, but he finds comfort in knowing that his wife and sons support both of his jobs.  He says he has no regrets in his life and it continues to show through his passion for art.

Photo by Brandon Iwamoto

For many people, music is an art form. From Beethoven on a grand piano to Hendrix and his Fender Strat, musicians are revered for their skill and the mastery of their instruments.

But what about the people who create those instruments?

In a small workshop on the eastern edge of Fort Collins, covered in sawdust and surrounded by exotic woods, Michael Bashkin is creating art.

He is the owner of Bashkin Guitars and a full-time luthier. Luthiers are expert craftsman, like carpenters, who specialize in creating and repairing stringed instruments, according to the Guild of American Luthiers Web site.

Since opening his shop in 1998, Bashkin has worked to bring 41 years of life into his craft, building custom acoustic guitars for enthusiasts around the world.

“When you get into the high-end, handmade market, you have to be firing on all cylinders,” Bashkin says. Lutherie is a careful combination of art and science, something that is a constant challenge, he adds.

“I had no money and no experience,” says Bashkin of his humble beginnings. He moved to Fort Collins 15 years ago, working as a research associate in the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory at Colorado State University while attending graduate school for forestry.

It was during this time that he took an interest in lutherie and began an unpaid repair apprenticeship at the former Fort Collins shop, Osprey Guitars. Bashkin credits his time there as an invaluable learning process.

“One of the funny things about guitar making is it’s a craft spent a lifetime learning,” Bashkin says. He built his first guitar from a kit in 1994, using tools he borrowed from Osprey. “Work I’ve done in the past is a snapshot of where I was at the time.”

Bashkin has now created nearly 100 guitars, most of which are commissioned by specific buyers. He also sends a select number to dealers in the United States, Japan, Italy and England. Though he still plays on occasion, he does not own one of his own guitars.

“Within eight bars of playing [a Bashkin guitar], I said, ‘That’s it, this is what I’m looking for,’” says Larry Jacobsen in a phone interview, who is a pastor from Cheyenne, Wyo., and the owner of a Bashkin guitar for four years. “It surpassed everything I hoped.”

Bashkin has no formal artistic training, but his guitars reflect his rich history. After earning an undergraduate degree in forestry from the University of Montana, he worked an eclectic mix of jobs. Among other things, he spent time in Belize teaching tropical forestry and was a photography assistant in New York City.
These two experiences had an enormous impact on his approach to guitar building. Bashkin prefers to use tropical hardwoods for the sides and backs of his guitars. One of his models, the African Blackwood 12 fret, is a nod to his appreciation of black and white photography.

“In a guitar, you’re balancing aesthetics, protection and acoustics,” says Bashkin of the process. He builds guitars in batches of two to six at a time, working closely with each client to make sure the instrument fits their specific needs. Each guitar takes between 80 and 100 hours to complete, spread over a period of about six months. Bashkin ensures every component is ideal, down to necks tailored to perfectly fit a client’s hand.

“The craftsmanship is outstanding and the sound is outstanding,” says Mike Joyce in a phone interview. Joyce owns San Diego-based Luthiers Collection, one of two shops in the nation certified to distribute Bashkin Guitars. “He does some little things in aesthetics and construction that sets himself apart from other craftsmen.”

The construction of a guitar involves thousands of individual steps, a process Bashkin describes as “a terrible model of efficiency.” Despite a base price of $5,500 and a backlog of nearly two years, Bashkin is not driven by profit. According to him, he builds because of a deep passion and interest in his craft.

Photo by Brandon Iwamoto

In his approach to guitar making, Bashkin is meticulous and precise. Before making any cuts, he draws a full-size picture of the guitar and hangs it on the wall in his workshop. This part of the process is vital: if one curve or shape is off, the entire guitar suffers.

“If it’s not good on that very basic, silhouette level, the guitar won’t work aesthetically,” Bashkin says. He describes this blueprint stage as a very instinctual process. Bashkin may refine a drawing 20 times before he is satisfied.

Jacobsen notes that Bashkin takes longer than some other hand-builders, but it is because he simply won’t tolerate any flaws. “It’s almost like a balloon. If you put your finger in one spot, it changes everything else,” Bashkin says.

After he has a perfect blueprint, Bashkin begins the building process. Unlike some luthiers, he does not rely on intricate inlays and fancy flourishes to make his guitars stand out. Instead, he focuses on one of the most vital components of any guitar – the wood itself.

“I try and place an emphasis on celebrating the beauty of the wood in my guitars and not override it with something else,” Bashkin says.

Bashkin’s background in forestry plays a large role in how he selects the wood for his guitars. Each piece is unique, from Brazilian rosewood to Italian spruce, selected for both acoustic brilliance and visual appeal.

“By using different woods he can vary the tone all over the spectrum,” Jacobsen says.

Bashkin values Jacobsen’s knowledge of the “subtleties and intricacies of a guitar,” and the two have developed a friendship based on their appreciation of each other’s talents.

“He’ll have a batch of guitars and turn me loose playing them,” Jacobsen says. He estimates that he has played nearly 35 guitars built by Bashkin, and finds that each one is better than the last.

“I don’t take any responsibility for that [the wood grain],” Bashkin says. “That is the tree. I just try and put it together in a pleasing way.”

However beautiful his guitars are, they are primarily musical instruments. Bashkin looks forward to a guitar leaving his shop almost as much as building it.

Photo by Brandon Iwamoto

“I can build a race car, but I can’t build a race car driver,” says Bashkin of the thrill he gets knowing his instrument is in the hands of a musician, though he admits some of his clients “played some guitar in college,” and are not always experts. Many are looking for the “emotional and spiritual connection” inherent to custom guitars and music itself, Bashkin says. This level of personal attention keeps Bashkin in business.

“I have never met a hand-maker that didn’t want his next guitar to be the best guitar he ever built,” Jacobsen says. It is this philosophy that separates luthiers from mass-production retailers.

“I find that when you take the constraints off a builder and let them be creative, that’s when they really flourish,” Joyce says.

“The difference between the factory market and the custom market is intention,” Bashkin says. He notes that it is often safer for a factory to “overbuild” a guitar by using inferior materials, resulting in an unpredictable product. Hand-builders take into account the variability of their materials in order to make every guitar exceptional, he says.

“I like to think the end product is better because of the process,” Bashkin says. “It can have a meaning beyond its basic material. It can be a work of art.”