A 46-year journey of love, self-discovery and fulfillment

By Jackie Valley

Friday, Feb. 13, 2015 | 2 a.m.

Because she's never too old to look pretty, Holly Nesmith, 68, is getting a makeover. Her white hair is covered with a wig cap; a neutralizer is applied to hide dark shadows, then a foundation to even her skin tone, and loose powder to set the liquid makeup. The beautician then swipes a contour brush across the peaks and valleys of Holly's face, to thin out the jaw and nose and create the illusion of higher cheekbones.

"This gets more of that girly shape," says Amy Hoaeae, owner of Just You, a beauty boutique tucked into a quiet strip of businesses on Desert Inn Road.

Holly’s wife, Toni, is beaming from the chair next to her as Amy adds the finishing touches.

“Oh God, you look gorgeous,” Toni, 66, tells her.

They’ve been married for 46 years, from back when the 6’2”, sturdy Holly went as Jeff.

• • •

Jeff and Toni met on the phone in January 1967.

Jeff was a disc jockey at a radio station in San Bernardino, Calif., and Toni was a senior in high school. Toni called the station nightly to talk to her boyfriend, Charlie, who worked there. Jeff, whose air name was Ed, transferred the calls.

When Charlie ended the relationship, a distraught Toni kept calling, and Jeff kept answering. His smooth, sexy voice impressed her. Soon, that voice became familiar, comforting even, and the pair chatted for hours every night for three months.

They finally met in person. Toni was wearing a paisley shirt, a royal-blue blazer and a medallion around her neck. “I wasn’t impressed,” Holly recalls.

Jeff was assertive. He gruffly told Toni to “get in” his luxurious maroon 1962 Oldsmobile Starfire. They drove to a Denny’s, where Jeff bantered with a waitress the entire time. It wasn’t an ideal first date, Toni admits, but there was something about the tall disc jockey with the hot car. She was enamored.

After a nearly two-year courtship, they married on Dec. 28, 1968, vowing to honor each other in sickness and health, laughter and sorrow, and in good times and bad. Ten days later, Jeff headed to Vietnam as a sergeant in the Army for what would be their marriage’s first big test: a 19-month deployment with only a month reprieve.

After the war, the couple welcomed the birth of their first child, Christopher, and moved to the Los Angeles suburb of Moreno Valley, where they would work in the local school district and face another threat to their marriage. A neighbor babysitting their son, then 5 years old, accidentally ran over him in her truck. Their only child, a little boy who cleaned his room voluntarily and had just started kindergarten, died in the driveway.

Mourning the loss of their beloved child, they resolved to not let it break them. The tragedy could shape their lives, but not define it.

“It’s like anything in life,” Holly says. “You can take something tragic and try to glean something positive from it.”

In their case, it meant the birth of their two other children — first, a son and, later, a daughter.

• • •

In his own youth, Jeff had tried Little League baseball, football and track. Nothing stuck. Sports weren’t his forte; neither were cars. Born into a male body, his mind never seemed quite in sync with his outward appearance. Jeff looked to girls for friendship, and, later, made clandestine trips to his mother’s closet to experiment with women’s clothing.

In adulthood, Halloween was Jeff’s salvation. It was his free pass to dress as a go-go girl, sexy nurse or French maid — any female personage that gave him an excuse to cross dress. Jeff and Toni spent months planning their costumes, and Toni never questioned his enthusiasm.

“I wasn’t very subtle,” Holly recalls.

And yet the answer to all the whys — why he gravitated toward feminine things, why he enjoyed dressing as a woman, why he was so curious what sex felt like for Toni — eluded him for years. He couldn’t quite connect the dots — until the age of the Internet.

In 2003, Jeff stumbled upon a website for cross-dressers and came across the word “transgender,” a term for people whose gender identity, expression or behavior differs from their assigned sex at birth. The posts mesmerized Jeff because suddenly his answer was right there on the screen. He wasn’t meant to be a Jeff. He never was him.

Jeff typed a thoughtful post, pouring his soul to unknown readers. Then, summoning every ounce of courage, Jeff called over Toni – his best friend, his partner, his wife — and showed her his online letter.

“Honey, that’s me,” Jeff told her. “I wrote that.” Toni, not one to be fooled by Jeff’s frequent comedic attempts, at first thought it was a joke.

“It was a total surprise to me,” Toni says. “I wasn’t angered. I thought about it for a minute and said, ‘If you’re gonna do this, I want you to do it right.’”

The rules: No outrageously short skirts or high heels. If Jeff wanted to cross dress, which was the depth of Toni’s understanding at the time, he should dress like any other 55-year-old woman. And so he did. Jeff wore holiday earrings and donned manicured fingernails to his school district job as an electronic technician, charged with repairing anything from the football scoreboards to the fire-alarm systems. Toni worked in the same school district as a secretary.

Most co-workers either cared not to know or considered the feminine bling nothing more than an eccentricity.

At home, Toni practiced giving Jeff makeovers, and he wore women’s clothing. The public transition wasn’t fast or abrupt but not because Jeff ever wavered in his decision. He purposely wanted to take it slow for the sake of his loved ones, especially Toni. He wanted her to be just as comfortable as he felt.

For Jeff, each day was a step toward his true self: a transgender woman.

More than a decade ago, Jeff was thumbing through a magazine when an ad peddling male-to-female transformations caught his eye. He and Toni were enjoying a weekend getaway in Primm, a place where he could freely cross dress without running into neighbors or co-workers.

“I think I’d like to do this,” Jeff announced to Toni.

Toni encouraged him to call, and Amy answered. Sure enough, she had an opening the very next day: Aug. 7, 2004. Amy asked for a name.

“Jeff,” Holly replied.

“No, no. Your girl name,” Amy said.

Despite identifying as a woman for more than a year, it had never dawned on Jeff to ditch his male moniker. Put on the spot, he uttered the first girl name that came to mind — Holly, the name of a contestant on that year’s season of “Big Brother.”

The next day, Toni waited in the lobby while Holly followed Amy back to the salon area. Amy described every product she was using and why, until the last five minutes when she turned Holly’s back to the mirror. She added the final dabs of makeup and asked Holly to close her eyes.

“When I opened my eyes, that’s when my life changed forever,” Holly says. “It was the first time I was able to see the girl I knew had been inside all those years.”

Right then, Amy realized Holly wasn’t cross dressing as a fetish or form of relaxation. She had seen that look, the one that graces a transgender woman’s face when she sees the physical manifestation of her heart and soul for the first time. Holly quietly, joyfully wept, making her mascara run.

Amy reapplied mascara before it was time for Holly to be presented to Toni, who was waiting anxiously in the lobby. Holly was wearing a pink blouse and black skirt, complemented by rose-hued makeup and a platinum-blonde wig. Holly stepped around the corner, and Toni’s jaw dropped. Neither spoke.

“She was beautiful,” Toni says, recalling the moment. “That was the only way I can describe it.”

She fell in love all over again with this new version of her best friend.

Holly and Toni moved to northwest Las Vegas four years ago when they retired. Their 1,900-square-foot home is a blend of their current and former lives: Family photos embellish the hall leading to the bedrooms. In the middle is a portrait of the couple years earlier when Holly was known as Jeff. Photos of their children hang below it. Across the way is a more recent photo of Holly and Toni with friends.

The master bedroom is busting at the seams with girly attire. Multiple jewelry racks on their dresser and adjacent wall showcase their almost overwhelming selection. (Holly likes to accessorize more than Toni, but she succeeded in convincing Toni to get her ears pierced after she got her own done.) Their shared walk-in closet is brimming with women’s clothes. Holly’s collection includes a few more dresses and skirts and, in the back, a stash of 18 men’s shirts, a subtle indication that Holly can’t always be Holly.

The couple’s two grown children haven’t accepted their father as Holly. That’s why Holly and Toni aren’t Facebook friends. They don’t want to risk a photo of Holly winding up on their children’s computer screens and potentially damaging the relationship. Their children, both married and with young children, have made it clear: Mom and dad can visit their families in Southern California, as long as it’s Jeff and Toni who arrive.

“I acquiesced because I don’t feel it’s my position to cause any relationship problems between my wife and children and grandchildren,” Holly says.

The family dynamic illustrates the struggles people in the transgender community face, an issue thrust into the national spotlight recently.

Last month, President Barack Obama became the first president to mention transgender people in any prominent speech, let alone the State of the Union address. The comment elicited a flurry of excitement on social media and a commendation from the Transgender Law Center.

“President Obama’s public recognition of transgender people in his State of the Union address was historic,” the Center’s executive director, Masen Davis, said in a statement. “While it seems like a simple thing — saying the word ‘transgender’ in a speech — President Obama’s statement represents significant progress for transgender people and the movement towards equality for all.”

The timing was particularly poignant. Weeks earlier, Ohio teen Leelah Alcorn, who was born as Joshua, died after stepping in front of a semi-truck on a Cincinnati highway. The 17-year-old left behind an online suicide note, detailing the difficulties she faced, including disapproval from her parents, for feeling like a girl trapped in a boy’s body.

More recently, the nation has been captivated by widespread reports that former Olympian and Kardashian family member Bruce Jenner is transitioning to life as a transgender woman. Jenner has not publicly commented.

Researchers estimate that 0.5 percent of the U.S. population identifies as a transgender man or woman (or transgender boy or girl, if they’re younger). If that’s the case, do the math: Las Vegas could be home to 10,000 transgender people.

Amy understands the need for many of these people to live discreet, if not secret, lives. Dozens of trunks line a wall inside Amy’s boutique, filled with clients’ “girl things.” The shop also has a retail area that features women’s clothing, shoes and wigs in sizes large enough to fit a male body.

The store is in a quiet location to foster a sense of safety and privacy. Those who need its services most likely discover it while surfing the Web.

For Holly and Toni, the store has become a second home, just like Amy has become a close friend. Holly volunteers answering phones and cleaning the shop when Amy needs help, and the couple attend Super Bowl parties and other events there regularly.

Inside the shop, a wall of makeover photos includes multiple shots of Holly. The photos surround a famous Marilyn Monroe quote: “If I’d observed all the rules, I’d never have got anywhere.”

At Holly and Toni’s table inside the Coffee Pub, there’s more chatting than eating. They’re at the Sahara Avenue eatery with good friend Victoria Salisbury. It was a year ago at a restaurant when Victoria noticed Holly and Toni dining from across the room and felt drawn to meet them. Never shy about following her intuition, Victoria introduced herself to Holly in the women’s restroom. The conversation flowed naturally, and they’ve been friends ever since.

Victoria and her husband regularly get together with Holly and Toni, whether it’s to see a musical at the Smith Center for the Performing Arts or laugh over wine at home.

Today it’s just the girls, but mid-conversation, Toni makes a one-syllable slipup. She says “he” when referring to Holly.

“That’s the first time I’ve heard you use the wrong pronoun,” Victoria says.

Toni gasps quietly. She hadn’t even realized her mistake.

“I’m sorry,” she tells Holly, looking directly into her blue eyes.

Holly accepts the apology without any hint of anger. In the grand scheme of things, a mispronounced pronoun isn’t going to crumble their relationship. It happens. Had Victoria not pointed it out the error, Holly wouldn't have said anything.

“What would be the point of correcting?” she says. “It’s not intentional.”

Besides, they have more important things to discuss, like when they'll finally buy that hot tub for their backyard. It will be a belated retirement treat to themselves.

• • •

Holly and her biggest advocate, Toni, have heeded the call to educate. They’re active at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada in downtown Las Vegas and have plans to start a support group for couples like themselves. Toni took a speech class last year at the College of Southern Nevada because she wanted a venue to share her and Holly’s story. Her nine-minute speech riveted her classmates and earned her an A.

If she and Holly survived the separation of war and the death of a child, how could Holly’s transformation tear them apart? It couldn’t. They still take turns planning surprise anniversary getaways for each other and spend date nights grabbing dinner, seeing a movie or playing a few slot machines.

“This to me was nothing,” Toni says of her spouse’s transformation. “I know that sounds kind of silly. It is the person I married. She’s always been there.”

“I’m just wrapped differently now,” Holly chimes in.

As Toni learned more about gender identity, she understood what Holly already knew — that Holly had been a woman all along, cloaked in a male body. Toni understands their relationship stirs interest in a curious public, but she doesn’t dwell on it.

“Does that make me a lesbian because I’m in love with a woman?” she says. “I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t matter.”

Questions linger for Holly too. Does she want to legally change her name to Holly? And receive hormone-replacement therapy? She’s leaning toward doing both but hasn’t made a final decision.

For now, she’s grateful to have the support of her wife, her older brother and Toni’s twin sister — plus an overwhelmingly tolerant community, where she feels comfortable going to both Costco and the Center. Here, Holly can be herself, a thoughtful, loving woman who’s a natural leader armed with numerous corny jokes to lighten anyone’s mood. She wishes others, regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation, could feel the same sense of confidence.

“I’m a woman. I’m a transgender woman,” Holly says. “I’m not trying to conceal the fact. I’m just trying to be the best me.”