Woman proves not all angels wear halos

She calls them "my guys." They see her as an angel.

For more than five years, Jean Batronie has been a Sunday afternoon regular in downtown Tampa. On the Lord's day of rest, she pulls up in her 1996 Aerostar van near Tyler and Franklin streets and serves the homeless heaping plates of home-cooked fare from her Brandon kitchen. Then she hands out backpacks filled with shoes, batteries, clothing and other supplies, all purchased out of her own pocket from garage sales and thrift stores.

The first time she came was after a local crackdown on groups feeding transients in city-owned parks. The good Samaritans were told they needed permits and portable toilets. That really ticked off Jean, so she showed up with 100 burgers from McDonald's and defiantly handed them out.

She didn't get arrested. Instead, she got hooked.

"How could I not come back?" she said. "Everybody needs love; everybody needs food." With 65 to 90 people - mostly men - faithfully showing up every week, she couldn't back off and move on. In October 2008, she made her weekly mission official by registering with the state as a nonprofit organization. A Catholic, she picked a name honoring her favorite saint: St. Jude Helping Hand Foundation.

Jean's story came to me from reader Chyrisse Tabone of Dade City. Tabone, a college instructor who is documenting Tampa's homeless population through videos she posts online, nominated Jean for my Good Hearts series, which recognizes the unsung heroes in our community: people who do good works for pure purposes.

"She is truly a rare individual who has compassion for all," Tabone wrote. "She treats the homeless with dignity and respect and has inspired people like me to get involved helping those on the street."

If that's all there was to this story, we could just smile and think pleasant thoughts about Jean's selfless deeds.

But there's more to the 63-year-old, and some of it is bound to leave some people uncomfortable - or completely turned off.

Jean Batronie used to be Gene Batronie. She was a father of four and husband to Arleen. Still is. Only she had sex-reassignment surgery in Thailand in spring 2002. She never felt comfortable in her skin as a man. But 40, 50 years ago, when as a boy he knew he was different, the term "transgender" was not part of our vernacular.

"It wasn't something I could talk to my mother about," she said.

As a teen growing up in the housing projects in Detroit, Gene tried to fight those feelings by immersing himself in all things masculine: He rode motorcycles, wore leather jackets and boots and tight black T-shirts.

At age 19, he fell in love with a petite Ukrainian Catholic girl with a sparkly personality. From the moment he heard her voice, he knew she was the one.

"He wasn't like other guys. He opened doors for me; he was more sensitive to my feelings," Arleen Batronie said. "It was a perfect match."

Gene never told her about feeling different. Daughter Michele came along the first year of marriage, then three sons. He worked as a hypnotherapist, drove hydroplanes on the Detroit River, ran a marine refinishing business, played football with his boys.

But deep down, he knew. He wasn't who he appeared to be.

After the birth of the youngest, Timmy, Gene broke down and told his wife. She was shocked. She blamed herself and wondered how she had not known.

In the end, she couldn't leave Gene. She still loved him. So she made one request: Keep this a secret until all the kids are grown. Then do what you have to do.

She prayed that he would outgrow his feelings, but once the children were out on their own, he began researching the cost of sex-change surgery. He took hormones. When he made the appointment for the $5,000 operation, Arleen knew there was no turning back.

"I'll call you 'she' in public, but I won't hold hands," she told Jean when the transformed woman returned from Thailand. "I'm not a lesbian. I don't want people thinking the wrong thing of me."

They are very much a couple. They laugh, bicker, finish each other's sentences and dote on their four children and dozen grandchildren, all of whom live nearby. Arleen knows when her mate finds a passionate cause, like this homelessness ministry, she will pursue it 110 percent. Jean is semiretired from her hypnotherapy practice and mainly relies on Social Security. She finds ways to stretch a dollar and provide a Sunday meal and basic supplies.

Jean appreciates that support and devotion. She says that if God were to come to her now and say, "Jean, I'm going to turn back time and let you be born a woman," she would politely decline. If that were the case, she wouldn't have Arleen or all the experiences that have shaped her.

The kids were OK with it. It took some adjusting, prayers and research about gender identity disorder. They pulled together because they're a family.

Michele, the oldest, remembers her parents talking about the big secret in her dad's life.

"Was he running from the law? We didn't know," said the mother of three. "So when they finally told us, I was like, 'Is that it?' It could have been so much worse."

After being assured her parents would stay together, she gave her father her blessing. "God gave you the strength of a man," Michele told her father, "and the compassion of a woman. You've been here for me all my life; now I'm here for you."

Some can accept Jean the transgender. But there's even more to this story.

Viewers of Tampa Bay Community Network, Tampa's public access station, may recognize Jean from the late-night show she hosted from January 2003 to June 2006. She describes "Voyeur Dungeon" as a "tasteful and educational" production on the practice of domination and sadomasochism.

She also claims the show got some of the highest ratings among public-access programs. A station spokesman said there's no way to validate that. Instead, the station keeps records of viewer feedback, of which there were several negative comments: "Most horrible thing on TV, disgusting," wrote one in 2005. "This is why there are so many sexual predators in Florida."

The show eventually got pulled. Not because of the sexual content, but because station officials say Jean violated four policies. Most were minor, but one of those transgressions, promoting her personal Web site on the air, was deemed commercialism and a big no-no for public access.

Jean called it "blatant censorship" and sued Hillsborough County, Tampa, members of the public access board and station employees.

TBCN Executive Director Louise Thompson acknowledged only that the contentious battle "dragged on for months" and cost taxpayers more than $37,000 before Jean eventually dropped the lawsuit.

Jean's story is a reminder that not everything - nor everyone - is black-and-white.

Her pastor, the Rev. Bill Swengros of St. Stephen's Catholic Church in Valrico, knows that Jean's decision to have a sex-change operation doesn't conform to church teachings. Still, he sees her passion for justice and advocacy, her work with the homeless and her devotion to her spouse and family. He sees a person worthy of respect.

"We put people in pigeonholes for our own comfort level. God doesn't work that way," Swengros said. "In the end, we all have to stand before our maker. We don't have to answer to a person or an institution. We'll answer to God, who knows exactly what's inside our heart."

Jean says she's got nothing to hide. She wears her heart inside out every week when she and Arleen come downtown to feed "my guys" and listen to their stories. She knows what it's like to be different and scorned. She's there to tell them they can rise above it all.

"Who is anybody to judge another person?" she said. "I never hurt anybody. The only ones I owe an explanation for my life is God and Arleen. I don't judge, and nobody else should either."