Transgender woman dies suddenly, presented in open casket funeral as a man

theGRIO REPORT - A transgender woman died, and her family presented her in an open casket funeral as a man.

Nov 24, 2014

Jennifer Gable, born Geoffrey, died of an aneurysm on October 9. Her death came as a surprise to her friends, but the funeral was even more shocking, as friends report the open casket service presented her as a man.

“I am disgusted,” Stacy Dee Hudson, a friend of Gable’s, posted on Facebook. “A great and dear friend’s mom went to the funeral today. It was not closed casket. They cut her hair, suit on. How can they bury her as Geoff when she legally changed her name. So very sad. Jen you will be missed and people who know you know that you are at peace.”

“She had done what she needed to do legally to be seen as her authentic self. Her father erased her identity either though ignorance or arrogance,” said Meghan Stabler of the Human Rights Campaign. “But who knows what the parent was going through?”

Stabler also noted that this situation “stresses the importance of having a will.”

There was no mention of “Jennifer” in the paid online obituary, either. According to Mike Parke of the funeral home and crematory in Twin Falls, Gable’s death certificate listed her as male.