The Lady and the Dale (2021) s01e04 Episode Script

SPEAKER: Liz wanted
to be known as a trailblazer.
This car was a house of cards.
(GROOVY MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
Law enforcement agencies
start taking a closer look.
Somebody opened the hood,
there was nothing inside.
We're gonna prosecute it.
CANDI CARMICHAEL:
We're in shock.
We thought we'd
never see Liz again.
She was never gonna have
some lawyer speaking for her,
she had to speak for herself.
SUSAN STRYKER:
When they couldn't decide
if the car was real or not,
they started focusing on Liz.
SPEAKER 2: Her defense was,
it was the state interfering
with her right to be
an entrepreneur and a woman.
It was really a circus.
The jury came back with guilty.
She really thought that
they would never convict her.
She ran off.
(DINGS)
(CAR ENGINE SCRAPING)
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
(TENNIS BALL THUDDING
ON RACKETS)
ROGER SCOTT: In 1976,
Dick Carlson came to me
and said, "Elizabeth Carmichael
is in a tennis tournament
in La Jolla.
We wanna go down there
with a crew."
'Cause she'd been
on the run for a while.
(CROWD CHEERING)
So they went down there
and shot some
of the tennis tournament,
and then told the officials,
"Oh, by the way,
do you know that
that person is really a man?"
And that's really the last story
I remember about the Dale car
and Elizabeth Carmichael.
PRODUCER:
Really?
PRODUCER:
God, maybe I'm confusing
the stories.
(OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
The 60th Annual
La Jolla Tennis Tournament.
It seemed simple enough
at the beginning.
An unknown player
from Orange County,
31-year-old Renée Richards,
creamed every challenger
and made it to the finals
on straight sets.
Thirty-one-year-old
Renée Richards
is actually forty-one-year-old
Dr. Richard H. Raskind.
He's a man, until recently,
a New York ophthalmologist.
Renée Richards is
a professional tennis player
who was outed as a transsexual,
a transgender woman,
actually by Dick Carlson,
the same person who outed
Liz Carmichael.
And you wonder what--
why he kept paying attention
to trans people.
(TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
I moved to California,
3,000 miles from my home,
and I gave up my practice,
my professorship,
to lead a private anonymous life
with a new name in California.
And all that blew up in my face
in La Jolla.
Dick Carlson,
reporting from La Jolla.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
RENÉE RICHARDS:
I knew that I was going to
be subjected to a lot of grief,
personally
and in the public sphere, but
I had no idea of the magnitude
and the severity of it.
-(CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICKING)
-(REPORTERS CLAMORING)
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
REPORTER 1: District attorney
said they could account
for 800,000 dollars
that was, uh,
that went through the company?
Oh, the district attorney
is an unethical,
lying, slimy individual
who has taken a personal
interest in this case,
a personal, uh,
a personal situation
of vindictiveness
that I don't understand.
We took not a dime.
Not only did I not take
any money, I drew no salary.
I put over 100,000 dollars
of my own money
into the company.
I was the biggest loser.
I was the biggest victim.
And the prosecuting
attorney lies
when he says that they proved
that there was money missing.
There was no money missing.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Once convicted,
she fell into her old ways,
and skipped the date
in which she was supposed to
appear in court.
She jumped bail.
JERI BURCHARD: After the trial,
she didn't wanna, obviously,
go to prison.
You know, she wanted to stay
with the family.
That was still
her number one goal,
is her family was to always
be together,
and take care of family,
no matter what.
(MELANCHOLIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Vivian I think it just wasn't
what she wanted anymore.
All the years on the run
was hard.
She hadn't been able
to be a wife in so long.
I think she probably wanted to--
to be a wife again.
After the trial,
they got a divorce.
Obviously,
they loved each other.
They had five kids together,
moved around the country.
When they split,
the family went back on the run.
-(TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
-(BIRDS TWITTERING)
MICHAEL MICHAEL:
Right before we left California,
Vivian and Liz were talking,
and then they asked
who I wanted to be with,
and I said,
"I wanna go with Liz."
(MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
JERI: The family moved a lot.
-They lived in Oklahoma
-(INSECTS BUZZING)
-Arizona
-(EAGLE SCREECHES)
-Florida.
-(SEAGULLS CALLING)
If we needed to move locations,
she always made sure
she found a place for everybody
where we could always
be together,
and Texas just,
thank goodness,
ended up being the--
the stopping point
where they, you know,
really set down
and got our roots dug.
ELIZABETH CARMICHAEL:
I decided to give
the flower selling idea a try
after I'd gone through most
of my money
-and other alternatives.
-(TELEPHONE RINGS)
I had to do something.
CHARLES RICHARD BARRETT:
She would call and tell me
that the flower business
was doing good.
And I said, "Well,
what are you doing?"
And she told me,
she said, "Well, I'm
buying these wholesale flowers
and everything,
and I've got
a bunch of people here.
Some of these gals are homeless.
Some of the guys are homeless.
And they're out there,
right there on the intersection,
selling flowers,
and, uh, it just took off."
-(UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
-(ALARM RINGING)
JERI:
She was always a morning person.
So she would always be up
by seven o'clock in the morning.
She ordered the flowers,
she paid all the bills,
did payroll for our sellers.
I'd hear her on the phone
all the time,
calling our distributors
and negotiating with them
to get the better deals.
I mean,
I think she really didn't stop
until two o'clock
in the morning.
The flower company was her baby.
It was a family business
with, uh, Mamaw being the boss,
basically.
Uh, my dad, Brian Michael,
my uncle Michael,
my aunts, Wendi and Candi,
even my mother
they all worked for her.
MICHAEL: There was, like,
a four-acre lot,
and we had five mobile homes.
Liz lived in one,
my sister Candi and I
lived in another one,
and then the sellers lived
in the other two.
After we left California,
that's what we did for a living.
(TELEPHONE RINGS)
(MUSIC FADES) ♪
MICHAEL: Vivian and Liz
were like sisters,
I guess you could say.
(INDISTINCT WHISPERING)
You know, every time
they talked on the phone,
they'd talk for hour or two.
It wasn't all the time,
but they-- they kept in touch
throughout the whole journey.
JERI: They did divorce close
to the end of Vivian's life,
but they never really
disconnected.
Before she passed,
Vivian went ahead
and remarried somebody,
and then passed away
quite quickly after that
from cancer.
BARRETT: I was with Vivian
when she died.
(SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
In the end, uh
she had a good life.
And she--
It was a fast life,
and it was busy,
but life here on this earth
is just short.
JERI: I do know that my Mamaw
loved her very much,
no matter where we lived,
and through all the moves,
it was always saved of this--
really the--
it's the most beautiful photo
that my Mamaw had of Vivian.
She had her cats
in the photograph with her.
I felt like it was
pretty obvious
her love for Vivian
never diminished.
MICHAEL: They shined
when they were together.
(UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(ACTION MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
-(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(DANCE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
("UNSOLVED MYSTERIES"
THEME MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
ROBERT STACK: In 1973,
America was crippled
by the gas shortage.
Liz Carmichael
raised three million dollars
for her revolutionary
three-wheeled car,
which she claimed would get
70 miles to the gallon.
JERI: Yeah, we were just
all sitting around
and we saw it
STACK: Liz has disappeared
JERI: the original
Unsolved Mysteries episode.
Like, I don't know
how it worked out,
that the whole family
was watching.
STACK: In 1980,
she failed to show up
in court for sentencing.
And Liz Carmichael
and her five children
have not been seen
for over eight years.
(TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
If I were Liz,
I would be living as a man
because all of this publicity
and all of these victims
know Liz as a woman.
JERI: I think for us kids,
it may have scared us
'cause we finally understood,
"Oh my gosh.
She's in trouble."
I don't remember her being,
like, shell-shocked or mad.
More of accepting.
It'd always been a possibility,
and it was happening.
If you have any information
concerning this
escaped fugitive,
please call
our toll-free number,
1-800-876-5353.
JERI: You know,
Mamaw wasn't a recluse.
She went out,
went clothes shopping,
uh, went to the grocery store.
When that episode aired,
I think they had the caller
within, like, the same day.
(MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
NEWS ANCHOR 1:
Update. Within minutes
after this story first aired,
our telecentre received
an anonymous call from a viewer
who recognized Liz Carmichael
as a flower vendor
living in Bastrop County,
Texas, near Austin.
JERI: Within the first week
after the airing
they came and picked her up.
(SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
JERI: There was no fight put up.
Like, "Okay, well,
let's just get this done
so I can live
without having to worry.
My children and grandchildren
don't have to worry
if I just get this
taken care of.
I'll be home
before they know it."
Three weeks ago,
Jerry Dean Michaels
was featured on NBC's
Unsolved Mysteries
for bilking investors
out of millions of dollars.
He was arrested last night
by sheriff's deputies
in Bastrop County,
where he has lived
for the last year as a woman.
I don't know
this person's, uh, lifestyle.
I know what he looks like.
I know he uses female names,
but he is male.
REPORTER 2: You mind
talking to us just for a second?
What about
your three-wheeled car?
Tonight, Michaels is fighting
his expedition
back to California,
but it appears his years
of swindling and conning people
have settled with the dust
at the end of the Forest Lane.
MICHAEL:
I was in town selling flowers,
so I didn't know nothing
about it until that night.
And I was crushed.
It was-- it was hard on me.
I went and saw her
in the county jail.
And I knew
that they have ten days
to extradite her
back to California,
and each day,
I was thinking, "Well,
maybe they won't do it today.
Maybe they won't do it today."
And I was kind of excited
on the ninth day
because she was still there.
And on the tenth day,
my hopes were crushed again
because they came
and picked her up.
(OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
NEWS ANCHOR 2: On April 26th,
over eight years
after she jumped bail,
Carmichael was returned
to California
to face sentencing
for her 1977 conviction
of conspiracy,
grand theft, and fraud.
REPORTER 3:
Which would you prefer?
-Women's prison.
-REPORTER 3: Why?
'Cause I'm a woman.
JERI: Even though she was,
to me, my Mamaw,
she, when she did get arrested,
due to her not having
a full female body,
she was forced to go
into the men's jail.
(MUSIC ENDS) ♪
MICHAEL: It was 18 months
that she was incarcerated.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
CARMICHAEL: October 30th, 1989.
Dear Roberta, I got your card
and letter today.
Very cute.
I will be getting out
the first week in August
this coming year,
nine more months.
You never said in your letter
whether or not
you're getting any lately,
but if I know you,
you're not suffering any
in that department.
Next time you get drunk
or get laid, think of me.
I'll be with you in spirit.
Love, Liz.
Sunday, November 26th, 1989.
I spend about 20 hours a day
in a room that's 7 feet wide
and 11 feet long.
Nothing happens here.
Every week, I put in a request
to see the dentist,
but there's never a response.
Maybe it's a fiction
that there is a dentist here.
(INHALES) There's probably
a little old lady
-on the third floor
who cackles with laughter
-(LAUGHTER ECHOES)
as she reads the requests
to see the dentist
who died five years ago.
Tuesday, February 27th, 1990.
Dear Roberta,
on December 15th,
I was getting into my bunk.
(OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
My foot slipped.
I fell five feet onto my back.
It felt as if I had broken
something.
(GROANING)
For two weeks, I couldn't walk.
Then, for four more weeks,
I hurt so bad
I would only go to chow
once a day,
and wouldn't have gone then,
except I would have starved.
After that, I slowly improved.
(TYPEWRITER KEYS CLACKING)
My mind is sort of blank,
so I'm going to quit now.
(SCRIBBLING)
Either I'm doing a shitty job
of typing today,
or this typewriter is no good,
or maybe a bit of both.
I'll write again soon.
-I know how to spell "write."
-(SCRIBBLING)
-Love
-(KEYS CLACKING)
Liz.
(MUSIC FADES) ♪
UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
MICHAEL: At the end
of the 18 months, she got out.
She rode a bus back
from California to, uh, Austin,
and we went and picked her up.
(TIRES SCREECH)
The business was stressful,
to say the very least.
Nobody was capable
of keeping the family together
like she was.
Whenever something
would go wrong,
she always had the answer.
By then, it was me
and my sister
and a handful of sellers.
None of the bills had been paid,
and both of our properties
were getting ready
to be foreclosed on.
Then, with her back at the helm,
we were able to regroup
and start over.
QUIET MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
JOHN PEDROZA:
When I was recruited,
I had just left the military.
My head was in a bad space.
I did not know where to go.
This guy say, "You want a job
and a place to live?"
So I just left.
She brought me into the fold,
was very kind.
She let me know that
you need to grow up,
you need to have
a better headspace,
and you need to move forward.
And that's what I did.
(BIRDS TWITTERING)
From that point on,
I was just involved
in every aspect of the business,
from flower selling
to route driving to recruiting.
JERI: San Antonio, Houston,
um, even Dallas at times.
She would send recruiters
to surrounding cities.
We'd go look for people who need
a job and a place to live,
which is something that I found
very endearing.
I mean, she's giving you a place
to live and paying you.
JERI: She didn't judge people.
Even if she knew
they had a-- a bad past,
she's more than willing
and happy to provide
a second chance.
MICHAEL: Well, the sellers
had their own house.
There'd be two bunk beds
in each room,
and there'd be, you know,
four guys in each room
if it was a four-bedroom house.
JERI: The route drivers,
they would go to the home
where the sellers lived.
PEDROZA: Route driver
would pick them up,
take you to your corner,
and then they'd leave you.
You would stay
from 2:00 to 10:00.
And then they'd pick you up,
pay you your 20 percent.
Then they'd take you
to go get your groceries,
or whatever you needed,
and take you home.
That's very--
it was very simple.
You go in, you work,
get paid, go home.
Just like any job.
JERI: For me, as a kid,
it felt like
it was more playtime.
Like, there was just more people
for me to bother and play with.
I loved growing up like that,
not only all my family together,
but then all these different,
like, eclectic sort of people.
It's very diverse.
And I thought it was great.
(QUIET MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
PEDROZA:
She was a very good boss.
Everybody that worked for her
really cared for her
and loved her.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
JERI: So, her and my uncle were
getting ready for the day
to go get the sellers,
to pick them up and take them
to their intersections
to-- to start selling.
And they stopped
at a convenience store,
and it had this little pipe
that was coming up
out of the ground.
She happened to trip over it,
and fell and broke her hip.
And she was not one
for medical care.
She hated the hospital
and did not like doctors.
And so she never
really did anything for it,
so she just stayed
wheelchair-bound.
And it-- it affected her a lot,
'cause, you know,
she was already up there in age.
She, honest to God,
built this, like, pulley system
that she could wrap
around the leg
of the side of the hip
that was broke,
and, like, pick it up
and throw her other leg over
and put herself
in the wheelchair.
And she's doing it at, like,
70 years old. (CHUCKLES)
She still came to work
every day.
She just stopped
doing the routes as much.
But every day, she'd wake up
in the morning,
go sit at her desk.
It definitely held her back,
breaking her hip,
but it never stopped her.
Not by any means.
-(TAPE RECORDER CLICKS)
-CARMICHAEL:
(TAPE CLICKS)
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
I moved my family to Austin
to take the best
reporting job I ever had
with the
Austin American-Statesman.
We noticed immediately,
it seemed like
on every major intersection,
there were people
on the corner selling roses.
I travel a lot, and I'd never
seen anything like it.
So I went to an editor
and I said, "Listen, I--
What I'd like to do
is go out
to one of those intersections,
and let's just do a story.
It can be something as simple
as a day in the life
of one of these rose salesmen."
So the next morning,
I went out
and spent a day
with one of these vendors.
He said he had been recruited
to come from Houston to Austin
to sell roses, which I thought
was pretty odd.
So I said,
"Who do you work for?"
And he was kind of skittish
about it at first,
but he told me
that this business
was being run by a woman.
And it was Liz Carmichael.
(MUSIC FADES) ♪
You couldn't just, uh,
google "Liz Carmichael"
and have the thing pop up.
So I started calling
florists in Austin
to get some lowdown on her.
They'd say, "Yeah, I'd rather
not talk about that."
When I get to
the eighth florist,
she's pissed.
She said, "You might wanna
look into this person.
Not only are her employees
not registered,
they're supposed to have
a vending license,
but there's something off
about this woman."
And I said,
"What do you mean 'off'?"
She said, "She's really big.
And she looks like a guy."
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
ALEX JONES: (ON TV) but this
transnational socialism
for the rich can only fail!
We're gonna defeat
these people,
we're gonna
turn their lives upside down.
This federal intrusion
is out of control, and
CANDI MICHAEL: And we both
would listen to Alex Jones
until he said
something stupid like,
"I think it's legitimate to ask
for a Social Security number
when you're getting
a driver's license
as a means of identification."
Social Security nu--
There are
a whole number of people
who believe,
in their heart of hearts,
that government should stay out
of the way.
Stay out of my business,
don't impose taxes on me,
and stay out
of my personal life.
-(TAPE CLICKS)
-CARMICHAEL: I don't believe
that there should be any laws
giving anybody any rights.
I think rights should be
self-inherit.
I think that every human being
should have the right to life
and the leading thereof
without any interference.
Black, white, yellow,
male, female, whatever.
(TAPE CLICKS)
SUSAN STRYKER: Liz Carmichael
was a libertarian.
Libertarianism, traditionally,
that kind of jibes with
where trans people
run into difficulties.
It's not just there's prejudice
against trans people,
it's that the state
is gendered in ways
we usually don't think about,
based on your birth certificate,
or, you know,
your school records,
or your military service,
or criminal record.
You know,
after you've transitioned,
it's like you don't have
a backstory anymore.
You're kind of like a person
without a record, in a sense,
uh, which can raise red flags.
It makes sense
that a trans person
could be libertarian.
MARK MACCARLEY: She justified
everything she did,
including her disdain
for regulation,
on Ayn Rand's sort of
libertarian view
that less government is better.
(TAPE CLICKS)
REPORTER 4:
Any, uh, any favorite authors?
CARMICHAEL: Ayn Rand
is my favorite, uh,
basically because of
the kindred spirit I see in her.
-REPORTER 4: Atlas Shrugged.
-CARMICHAEL:
Well, Atlas Shrugged,
and before that,
The Fountainhead
and all of her nonfiction stuff.
(TAPE CLICKS)
Atlas Shrugged.
Yup. Still have it.
I remember the first time
she made me read that book.
I was like (SNORES)
MACCARLEY: Atlas Shrugged
talked about an entrepreneur
who ran a railroad,
and the government
took every means available
to destroy her business.
CARMICHAEL:
The Twentieth Century
Motor Company.
SANDY STONE:
Selfish, you know,
that's the heart
of Ayn Rand's philosophy.
You know, you create
your reality,
and then you go,
"This is my reality,
and I'm gonna force it
on the world,
and I'll be me
in spite of the fact
that nothing else wants me
to be that."
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Liz had the short-term
ability to say,
"This is gonna work."
But it was gonna fail because
the world doesn't work that way.
-(CRICKETS CHIRPING)
-(TAPE CLICKS)
CARMICHAEL:
(TAPE CLICKS)
(TELEPHONE RINGING)
PEDROZA: I was watching
television, and the phone rang.
(RINGING CONTINUES)
I answered the phone.
This person at the other end
said that they were with
the Austin American-Statesman,
and they wanted
to tell the story
of the flower business.
"Can I ask you a few questions?"
He was just asking
all these very basic questions.
"How do you do it?
How does the route go?"
And then I answered him
as positively as I could.
That was it.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
MARK LISHERON:
I'm now bumping up
to my Sunday deadline.
I'd already established that
she's running this rose business
based on homeless labor.
Everything is completely
off the book.
She's not paying taxes.
She's not doing anything.
I've got a hell of a story,
but I know that
there is more to it.
I ran a criminal
background search.
Through that, I got ahold
of an assistant DA in LA.
And he said, "So, you're working
on a Liz Carmichael story?"
I said, "Yes,"
and he said, "Well, get ready,
'cause there is one hell of
a story here in California."
And then he unloads
this story about the Dale.
I thought to myself,
"You are shitting me."
The newsroom is empty.
Everybody's long gone home.
And I am pumping my fist.
I had the story of the year.
It was maybe the biggest thrill
I've ever had.
(MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
MICHAEL: We didn't celebrate
Christmas on Christmas day
'cause we worked
on Christmas day.
We celebrated Christmas
in January.
And the-- her reasoning for that
was that all the sales
were in January,
so we'd celebrate Christmas
January 25th.
JERI: Even if we didn't have
a lot of money
for birthday presents
or for Christmas,
Mamaw, in particular,
always made sure
that you got something.
The first Christmas party
was the fondest memory I have.
She came out of the back
and mentioned to me,
said, "John,
I just want you to know
that you are part
of this family."
And, um, she gave me
an envelope. I opened it.
It was a hundred-dollar bill.
She treated her family
very well.
JERI: The fact that we were
all together all the time,
it was great.
We actually had a sense
of security and comfort.
She really did get
a good little break,
and then
Austin American-Statesman
ruined that for us.
(VEHICLE APPROACHING)
LISHERON:
Once I assembled everything,
I decided I needed to go out
to the compound
where Liz and her family
ran the business.
(TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
So the photographer
and I go out,
and there's this
really high fence.
It had to be seven feet tall.
You just couldn't see in
until you came around
to the gate.
And the day that we got there,
the gate was halfway open.
I stepped onto the property,
and in the back was
a dark blue trailer.
And in the door,
I can see somebody who's--
I mean,
basically filling the door.
It's Liz.
She's wearing slippers,
a house coat,
the blonde wig,
and right behind her
are her two sons.
I tried to get this out,
"I'm Mark Lisheron
with the Austin
American-Statesman."
And he just-- she, I'm sorry--
Liz just starts
screaming at me.
"Get off my goddamn property,
get off, get out of here,
I don't wanna talk to you."
And-- I mean, in this bellowing,
threatening voice.
I'll never forget,
she had what looked like
a five o'clock shadow.
And-- but-- but she did have,
you know, she did have breasts--
or, I mean,
what looked like breasts,
under the, uh, house coat.
It looked like a-- a man
masquerading as a woman.
(MUSIC FADES) ♪
MICHAEL: Him coming
onto the property
to take pictures and be nosy,
he had no business doing that.
There was "No Trespassing" signs
everywhere.
But he acted like
they weren't there.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
PEDROZA: When I saw the article,
I-- I just was shocked.
The man who interviewed me,
Mark Lisheron
took everything I said
out of context.
Never once did I ever have
anybody come up and say,
"I am stuck here."
They worked there
out of their own free will.
Stayed as long
as they wanted to.
People wanna believe
that she's an evil person.
If anything, I felt that
I was taken into the family.
If I had not met
Roadway Flowers,
I would either have been in jail
or dead.
And they helped me a lot.
Once that article came out,
it was kind of like
the city of Austin
found out about her past,
and were trying almost
everything they could,
it seemed like, to get her out.
They started giving her
code violations.
Even after serving her time,
she never really did
live it down.
(RIPPING)
STRYKER: Liz Carmichael
was dogged by claims
that she was just pretending
to be a woman
in order to get away with fraud.
REPORTER 5: I think
most people are interested
in your personal life
and your-- your sex change,
to be perfectly candid.
Well, whatever claim
to fame I have
is as a producer of automobiles,
not as a sex change artist.
STRYKER: Her transness
was treated as a spectacle.
Her identity was constantly
being called in to question.
But if you looked at
what she actually did,
I mean, she lived as a woman
for years and years,
for decades.
There's nothing new
about journalists
hounding trans people
and exploiting trans stories
to sell newspapers or TV ads.
(RAPID PIANO MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
STRYKER:
In England, in 1746,
Charles Hamilton was outed
as Mary Hamilton.
-(WHIP CRACKS)
-(INDISTINCT JEERING)
STRYKER: He was publicly flogged
in every town
that he ever lived in.
He just wanted to lead
an anonymous life,
but his visibility
as a trans person
-kept attracting attention.
-(INDISTINCT WHISPERING)
(CELL DOOR SLAMS)
STRYKER: Though he had not
committed any crime,
he was arrested and outed
in the press all over again.
There was actually no law
against cross-dressing itself,
so Hamilton was let go.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
It wasn't until the 1840s
that we see a wave of laws
all across the US.
that criminalize cross-dressing.
Memphis, Tennessee,
passed one of these laws
and used it against
a trans woman
named Francis Thompson,
who was arrested in 1876.
Thompson had testified
about being raped
by white supremacists,
and the revelation
of her transness in the press
was used to discredit
that rape testimony.
Because she's viewed
by the authorities
as, quote, unquote,
"really a man,"
therefore,
she could not have been raped.
Therefore, her testimony
had to be false.
Her transness
was explicitly weaponized
and it became a media spectacle.
(MUSIC FADES) ♪
When a reporter asked Thompson,
"Why are you a man
wearing women's clothes?"
She just says, "It's none
of your damn business."
(BLEEP) you.
(INDISTINCT CLAMOR)
STRYKER: In the 1940s,
trans woman Lucy Hicks Anderson
was accused of fraud,
and when she is put
on the witness stand,
she says, "I defy any doctor
in the world
to prove that I am not a woman.
I have lived, dressed, acted
just as what I am, a woman."
That didn't persuade the court.
She served jail time
and was released on probation
on the condition that
she dress publicly as a man.
(SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Thirty years later,
despite how Liz Carmichael
was treated in the press,
her transness was actually
legally recognized in court.
That represents
a small measure of progress.
Trans women are widely assumed
to be disguising themselves
for some criminal
or deviant purpose.
I think many men
just have a hard time
wrapping their heads
around the idea
that anybody would want
to live as a woman.
They perceive womanhood
as something inferior.
What we're actually seeing
is nothing about
a trans person's life.
What we're seeing
is the fragile,
freaked-out perspective
of a person
who's been given a platform
in the media.
Gerry Liz told another reporter
she would, uh, be willing
to be interviewed
by just about anybody
but me or producer Pete Noyes.
She, or he, rather,
has blamed Noyes and me
for destroying
the three-wheel Dale and said
DICK CARLSON: (IN PRESENT)
We ultimately did 27 parts
about Elizabeth Carmichael
and the Dale car.
We won
the George Foster Peabody Award
the following year
for investigative reporting
for this series.
I left television in 1976,
and I ultimately
went to Washington
with the Reagan administration
as the head
of the Voice for America.
But in the meantime,
I did worry.
Mrs. Carmichael is a fugitive
during much of this time.
I had a briefcase with
a piece of bulletproof metal
put on the inside cover
of the briefcase.
I also had a gun permit
and a pistol.
I kept the briefcase
on my desk open.
And if she ever came
barging into my office,
I was gonna shoot her.
It was that kind of paranoia.
Justified or not, I'm not sure.
TUCKER CARLSON:
This is my father, Dick Carlson,
from his days as a reporter.
My father was in journalism,
which is why
I got into journalism.
My father was
the most interesting, funny,
truly independent thinker
I'd ever met,
and still have ever met,
and I attempted to emulate him
in all those ways.
If I were to decide tomorrow
that I was a 47-year-old woman,
should I be allowed to go shower
in a women's locker room?
What prevents me from
getting convicted of a felony
and demanding to go
to women's prison?
You know, a lot of people
have asked me
if we have an obsession
-here on Eyewitness News
Wants To Know.
-COHOST: Do we?
No, we really don't.
that men and women are very
different from one another
in some key ways.
-They look different
-former Mrs. Carmichael,
nothing has been heard of her--
him-- since he disappeared
a couple of months ago.
different interests,
and so forth and so on.
It does seem like
a boutique issue
of particular concern to people
from certain zip codes,
income levels, education levels.
I mean, it's-- it--
it's kind of a--
an issue for rich people,
is it not?
MEGHAN MURPHY: I consider it
a totally academic issue.
-TUCKER: Yes.
MURPHY: So, you know,
people who are in universities
are privileged people, um,
in North America,
people who, you know,
exist in academia
are, of course,
gonna be mostly middle
and upper-class people.
This whole concept
of transgenderism
and gender identity was really
invented within academia.
Nobody in the general population
really believes these ideas.
(CROWD CHEERING)
LARRY MADOWO:
People tend to think
this is a Western kind of ideal.
Somebody from Kiambu
doesn't decide
to change their gender.
It's not an issue of a Western--
the West or anything.
The fact is transsexual people
have been part of this society.
See this?
We want so many things.
There's so many things,
like social acceptance.
So I feel the fight
is still on, like,
we aren't going to back off.
No going back. Never.
("TRANSGENDER DYSPHORIA
BLUES" BY AGAINST ME! PLAYING) ♪
RICHARDS: I am not something
to be exploited.
I'm an individual
with a family
and with feelings,
and with the same rights
to privacy
and ordinary human decency
that everybody else
is entitled.
(MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
REPORTER 6:
Because of your--
of your sexual situation?
I think that the publicity
attended to this case
would not have been
as great as it was
had I not been a transsexual.
STRYKER: Stories like Liz's
have always been picked up
by the press,
and those representations
have always been contested
by trans people.
(MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
I don't have to prove to anyone
or myself that I'm a woman.
I am a woman.
REPORTER 7: Why,
for example, did you decide
to pose as a woman
in this transaction?
Well, it wasn't
in this transaction.
I'm a transsexual.
STRYKER: One of the things
that's changed in the world
since Liz's time is that
the trans movement
has amplified the possibility
for telling a different story.
You want them to see you
Like they see every other girl ♪
They just see a faggot ♪
Hold their breath
Not to catch the sick ♪
I think it's about time
that gay brothers
and sisters got their rights.
(MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
(LOW MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
STRYKER: What might Liz's life
have been like
if she was born
a couple of decades later?
Maybe if the world had been
a different place,
she could have been
a different person.
You know, I-- I like to think
that, um
that that could be true.
(MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
STONE: Liz was
the successful entrepreneur.
Not only that,
but the successful
woman entrepreneur.
She pumped herself up
at every opportunity.
She presented herself
as the greatest, the best,
the "I'm going to conquer
the world.
I'm going to build
a multimillion-dollar company.
I am the most wonderful
and the most outstanding."
Uh, you catch things
on the-- the rising tide,
you're doomed to success.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
Behind that,
I have an image of her going,
"Oh my God. What am I gonna do?
I have to keep up this front.
I have to convince people
that I can really do this stuff.
I can really
just be stable in the world
and find some way to hang on
to a kind of a tenuous reality."
And she worked very hard at it.
And she was very good at it
for a period of time.
And maybe you can only
be good at it
for a period of time.
Maybe that's all you get.
(MUSIC FADES) ♪
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
(QUIET MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
-(TAPE CLICKS)
-CARMICHAEL:
(TAPE CLICKS)
As she aged, you know,
there was no money
for special doctors.
You can't go
on hormones anymore.
I used to go to Mexico
to get her diabetes medicine
because we couldn't
afford it here.
And then they changed the laws
about going to Mexico,
so I couldn't go get
cheap diabetic medicine anymore.
She got sicker and sicker.
But it wasn't all
because of the hip.
She also had cancer.
It took her a while
to get it looked at
and get it taken care of,
and by the time
she got it taken care of,
it was melanoma in her nose.
She'd always wanted
the business to go on.
"If I'm laying in bed sick,
everything is to keep going."
So that's what I did.
I just kept putting
the route out,
and I'd hurry back to the house
as quick as I could,
and stay there with her.
(INDISTINCT WHISPERING)
JERI: As time went by,
she refused to get out of bed.
And then slowly
wouldn't wake up.
Like, nobody knew what to do,
and so EMS came
and picked her up.
And then come to find out
she was in, like,
a diabetic shock.
It was really quick.
Got admitted,
and she passed away
the same day.
We didn't have the money
to bury her or anything,
but one of the things
that she said was,
"If I ever die,
uh, just throw my body
in a ditch somewhere.
Don't waste any money
on a funeral."
We didn't know
what we were gonna do,
and the guy--
social worker or whatever,
came in from the hospital
and started making suggestions.
We donated her body to science,
which I thought
was a fantastic idea,
uh, 'cause she--
she had several cancers.
She had skin cancer,
throat cancer.
And so between that
and it being
a transgender person,
it was like the prime thing
would be, of course,
to let them learn off of her.
(SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
JERI: When she passed,
the communication
between family members
has diminished
just tremendously from
what it was when she was alive.
Like, she would be
disappointed in us
that we're not as close-knit
as we once were.
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
(SORROWFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
MICHAEL: Everywhere we moved,
it was always in the living room
or an office,
but it was always displayed.
It was like
one of the family photos.
-Yeah. (CHUCKLES)
-The whole time we were moving
from place to place.
She was very proud of
very proud of what she'd
accomplished with it.
-(TAPE CLICKS)
-CARMICHAEL:
(TAPE CLICKS)
LESLIE KENDALL: There were
three-wheelers before,
but the Dale is important
to automotive history
because of everything it wasn't,
because of all
the unfulfilled promises,
the dreams that the people
behind it never realized.
It's up there on the left.
-Yeah.
-Oh, that's it.
Wow.
-JOHN GRIFFITHS: Go ahead.
-HANS HANSSON:
See if I can get in.
GRIFFITHS: Don't--
don't roll it now, Hans.
HANSSON: Yeah.
(GRUNTS)
HANSSON:
Everybody at the time
believed this vehicle
was something.
Real working-world people
who believed that one day,
this might just come true.
(QUIET MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
So, this is, uh,
one of the airbrushings
of, uh, the Dale.
And I wanted to inspire people,
so when they walked in,
they would be proud of it,
they'd look at this and say,
"I wanna be part of this."
(MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
GREG LEAS: It was a tragedy
in a lot of ways.
If everything
would've went well,
we would all be living
different lives right now.
(MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
This wasn't just
a bunch of guys screwing around.
We had our hearts
and souls into it.
Nobody believes that,
doesn't seem like, but
it was true.
We were always that way
thanks to Liz.
(MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
KENDALL: Liz didn't understand
that she was taking on
an awful lot.
She was trying to do
in a span of a few months
what Detroit had spent
decades perfecting.
She just did not realize
how complicated it was gonna be
to see something
like this through.
(TAPE CLICKS)
CARMICHAEL: Uh, we're
a one-person operation here.
Uh, I make all
the major decisions.
And, uh, if they're good,
I have to take credit for it.
If they're bad,
I have to take the blame.
(TAPE CLICKS)
MIA YAMAMOTO: Liz is trying
to justify what is done
by saying there shouldn't be
these laws.
Unfortunately,
we all must abide by the law
whether we like it or not.
CANDI: Liz broke laws,
and should have been prosecuted.
However, I think the way
things went down was wrong.
I mean, it reminds me
of how many big corporations
lie about things
and get away with it.
RON ABRAMS: Think of
the cigarette companies.
They lied about the danger
of cigarettes,
caused millions of people
to die.
Not one cigarette executive
was ever criminally prosecuted.
Liz lied about a car.
People lost money,
not their lives,
and she got put in prison.
(MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
MICHAEL:
I just don't talk about my past.
Don't talk about growing up.
You know, I tell them
I'm from California
and leave it at that.
And I tell them
that we traveled a lot.
We were constantly moving
all over the place.
But I don't tell them why.
CANDI: I would say
that I was a cynic
by the time I was three.
I never believed anything
for the rest of my life.
When I was born, I was born
under a fictitious name,
as were each
of the children born after me.
So to this day,
we aren't legitimate citizens.
It-- it's funny how one screw-up
in your youth
can affect people
for generations.
MICHAEL: I-- It's been hell.
It-- it's
It's still hard.
I can't fill out
a job application to this day.
JERI: My Mamaw was the person
I've looked up to
most in this world over anybody,
and Mamaw, I felt like,
provided me with
so much knowledge
to actually live and survive
in this world.
Everybody always asks
those people that question,
"If you could talk
to one person in heaven,"
you know, "just for an hour,
who would it be?"
And I'm sorry, Dad (CHUCKLES)
but even with my dad
having passed,
I would-- I'd still choose
my Mamaw.
STRYKER: Liz Carmichael
is not an easy person
for us to think of
as a role model.
Today, there's a lot of desire
on the part of trans people
to have some
very positive representation
'cause we've had such
bad representation
in media in the past.
There's this-- this hunger
to see a life
that you could aspire
to-- to emulate,
and I don't know that
that's Liz Carmichael's life.
("ANY OTHER WAY"
BY JACKIE SHANE PLAYING) ♪
But, at a deeper level,
I mean, there's something
that's really compelling
about Liz's story as a survivor.
She survived as a trans woman
for decades,
and there's something
to be said, I think,
for that kind of grittiness
that just kind of kept her
putting one foot
in front of the other.
This person transitioned
into a completely
unaccepting
and unaccommodating world.
They were forced to forge
their own path
by any means they could.
And that is exactly
what Liz Carmichael did.
And to fight through it
and continue with it
required amazing resilience.
And therefore, a person
who went through transition
in the 1970s was,
in their own way,
extraordinarily heroic.
STONE:
What the press says you are,
what the anti-feminists
say you are,
what the transphobes say you are
doesn't matter
because you are who you are.
And it happened that,
years later,
Liz, in fact, was still Liz.
If Liz had been a man
masquerading as a woman,
what-- whatever that means,
we would have known,
because that's who Liz
would have become.
But Liz didn't become that.
Liz did not become anything
other than Liz.
Liz was always Liz.
And that's all that matters.
(SONG CONTINUES) ♪
CANDI: The woman was a woman.
The car was a car.
If Liz could write her story,
she would write the story
about how she tried.
She'd say she tried
to save a nation
when it was shut down
by the government.
That's how she'd say it.
Like I said,
Liz was bigger than life.
I think she'd wanna be
remembered as a kinder person
and not just somebody that maybe
was out to get a buck, you know?
And I think that the car
would have been a success.
And I think she would want me
to say that
"We were gonna build the car.
Tell them that."
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
CARMICHAEL:
1975, letter from prison.
Dear Roberta, when you sit
in a place like this
day after day, alone,
it sometimes seems like
the whole world is against you.
After a while,
if you don't crack up,
you begin to be bitter.
Then along comes a letter
from someone you care about,
and the whole insulated wall
you've built around yourself
crumbles.
(INSPIRING MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Do I sound morbid and morose?
Well, sometimes I am.
But, mostly, I'm just fretful
because of the time
I'm wasting here
while there is so much
I want to be doing out there.
Starting another company
and trying to change
those things in the world
that I can't accept.
(MUSIC SWELLS) ♪
You wondered if this would
change me any.
I think not.
In a way, it may be a blessing.
(MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
It has given me time
to think out some ideas
that had been fuzzily rattling
around in my head for years.
I have time
to lay plans properly
for bigger and more
important things in the future.
See, I haven't changed.
I still have visions
of grandeur.
As for it changing
my personality,
I don't think it will.
Most people think
I'm an egomaniac
and a hard-hearted bitch.
And I suppose I am,
except with those I care for.
(MUSIC QUIETS) ♪
I expect that this experience
will just make me more
of what I am.
Those that I love,
I will love more.
Those that I hate,
I will learn to hate better.
What I have done so far
was only practice
for the things I intend to do
in the future,
when the future decides
to hold still long enough
for me to catch up.
I'm sure of one thing.
The world will know my name
before I'm through.
(MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
In the dark night, turning ♪
Beneath the star fields
Burning ♪
I see the ones
I see the ones ahead ♪
Circling on the river ♪
Around the teacher
The giver ♪
I see their hearts ♪
And all the fear
They've shared ♪
They beckon me, come ♪
Love can redeem ♪
Life is an art ♪
You have a part
That's yours to play ♪
Come, show us your dreams ♪
Life needs your hand ♪
To do what you can
In your own way ♪
This world
Is our combined imagination ♪
Your life
A precious personal creation ♪
What have you learned? ♪
What blessings earned?
They say ♪
(SONG CONCLUDES) ♪