Fla. official fired over plans to get sex change

'I have no followers'
Stanton listened with hands clasped throughout the meeting.

“It’s just real painful to know that seven days ago I was a good guy and now I have no integrity, I have no trust and, most painful, I have no followers,” Stanton told the crowd before the vote.

His announcement stunned this city of 76,000 near St. Petersburg. Stanton said he had planned to reveal his secret this summer when his 13-year-old son was out of school.

Stanton said he struggled with his secret desire to be a woman since childhood and hoped to “outrun it.” In 2003, he began counseling.

In a memo to city employees last week, Stanton said he intends to live as a woman for a year to learn whether he is ready for the operation. He said he has gone out in public as a woman only a few times in cities far from Largo.

Preparing for surgery
He said he is taking hormones in preparation for surgery. At Tuesday’s meeting, there was nothing womanly about his appearance as Stanton, a trim figure with a full head of graying hair, faced the crowd in a dark suit and tie.

“I’m going to be embarrassed if we throw this man out on the trash heap after he’s worked so hard for the city,” said Mayor Patricia Gerard, one of the few people with whom Stanton shared his secret before last week. “We have a choice to make: We can go back to intolerance, or we can be the city of progress.”

City Commissioner Gay Gentry praised Stanton, but said, “I sense that he has lost his standing as a leader among the employees of the city.”

Stanton left the room before the votes were cast, head down.

Gerard and Commissioner Rodney J. Woods — the first black commissioner in the city’s 102-year history — cast the only votes in his favor.

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