Clemmie Parker Engle – 50th Reunion Essay

Clemmie Parker Engle

132 West Maple Avenue

Denver, Colorado 80223

clemmie.engle@gmail.com

Education: Duke University School of Law, J.D. 1975

College: Morse

In 1971, after a couple years of teaching school, draft dodging, and bumming around Europe and Morocco, I put my world in the trunk of my car and headed West, not really knowing where I would stop. As it turned out, I stopped in Colorado, and it has been home to me ever since.

But not as the hippie I envisioned back in 1971. Alas, I was a failure at being a hippie, and, not knowing quite what to do with myself, I went off to law school.

In 1980 I landed a job doing criminal appeals in the Colorado Attorney General’s Office. The work was up my alley: ivory tower, egghead, academic. I developed a reputation as one of the best appellate lawyers in the state. It was such a good fit that I stayed for 32 years, until I retired in 2012.

In 1985 I married Karen. We were the best of friends, we traveled the world, we backpacked all over Colorado and Utah, and life was good.

We are still good friends, but after 10 years the marriage ended, as I underwent a midlife change of gender. I transitioned on the job, not without some drama, and in due course received official diplomatic recognition as Ms. Clemmie Engle. The judges of the Colorado Court of Appeals, Colorado Supreme Court, and United States Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, who previously addressed me as “Mr. Engle,” now addressed me as “Ms. Engle.”

When I retired, they showered me with awards and called me a “pioneering transgender woman” who had created “a path of progress for all to follow.” In truth, I never set out to be a pioneer. I was only living God’s holy plan for my life. But if, along the way, the personal became the political, and if, along the way, I contributed to the march of LGBT people toward the land of freedom, I am glad for it.

Now, in my retirement, I am lazy. I enjoy a lot of quality bathrobe time, with morning coffee hour often extending deliciously into the afternoon, and, in good weather, into the garden outside my little house in the Baker Historic District in Denver. I enjoy world travel, and, when not on the disabled list with one affliction or another, I still get out there and backpack and ski. I relish opera, sporting events, and sunsets in equal measure. I marvel every day at this miraculous gift of life and time.