Note: Before the surgery, Bobby was asked to speak to a group of psychologists and doctors at the Univerity of Washington. She wrote the following and read it to the group. It was her last task to perform before the surgery.

After 43 years I continue to live with an obsession that has ruined not only my life, but the life of others I have loved. I cannot understand myself, nor can O reason why O must be tormented until I die. I did not ask to come upon this earth, and I have never thanked God for the breath of life. My health is excellent and my appearance is normal enough, a normal male that should find a place in the world, marry, and live out a reasonably happy life. If only it were that simple.

I am female, and I continue to live as such, regardless of type of clothing, kind of work, etc. Society dictates that I live and work as a male, but laws cannot bend deep feelings and longings that tear me away from the maleness they stab me with.

As I write this, I am dressed as a female, my true identity. If I seem rough and coarse, I blame it on society. They forced me to live in a man's world. A world I've despised from the beginning. I no longer care what people think when they meet me, for I choose to stay the way I am now. When I venture out into the world again it will be as a female.

Note: Reading this and knowing that after the surgery, Barbara could not find a job as a women and did not feel her appearance, demeanor and her multiple tatoos would ever allow her to live her life as a real woman. This provides an insight into why she would have so much anger built up inside. As Cooper so aptly put it, "I don't have a grudge against your airline, I just have a grudge,"