Photo: Carolyn Van Houten
Life in Transition
Based on more than a year of reporting, a project featuring the stories of transgender San Antonians as the battle over a proposed bathroom bill raged in Austin. The series documents their transitions, fight for rights and legal and medical hurdles.
The project tied for first place in the 2017 EPPY awards for Best Investigative/Enterprise Feature on a Website.
Part 1: The battle: How a national debate over gender identity permeated the 2017 Texas legislative session, as lawmakers filed two dozen bills advocates decried as discriminatory, including several so-called “bathroom bills.”
Part 2: The mother and daughter: Two generations of trans women learn from each other.
Part 3: The legal hurdle: Transgender people who seek to amend their birth certificates and IDs face an uncertain legal path.
Part 4: Will: For years, Will “passed” as a boy, thanks to fortunate genetics. But eventually he had to face his fears and navigate the difficulties of coming out as male at school.
Part 5: Jackson Farner: At 16, Jackson often took it upon himself to educate others on what it was like to be trans. It was a lot of responsibility for a teenager to shoulder, but he hoped he was helping make things easier for the next generation of trans kids.
Part 6: Adam Snow: Adam thought transitioning would be simple, as long as he kept to the plan he’d made for himself. But life turned out to be more complicated.
Part 7: Jaime Merkert: Living in Karnes City, Jaime has had to reckon with his mental health and the reality of being trans in a rural town.
Photo: Carolyn Van Houten
Future of San Antonio transgender airman now uncertain
Staff Sgt. Jamie Hash built a successful career as an airman. Now her fate lies in the hands of the president as he threatens to ban trans service members like her from serving in the military.
Photo: Kin Man Hui
Three years after son’s death, Redus parents still grieving
Three years after their son was shot dead by a campus police officer, Valerie and Mickey Redus still face painful reminders of their loss.
Photo: Lauren Caruba
La Vernia tries to cope in wake of sexual assault arrests
A small, rural town east of San Antonio grapples with the arrest of 10 high school students for sexual assault, charges that stemmed from an investigation into allegations of hazing among the school’s sports teams.
A three-part serial narrative about a gunman’s attack on a west Houston neighborhood and its harrowing impact on residents. The series was the first-place winner for Feature Series in the Texas Associated Press of Managing Editors awards. It was also recognized as a notable narrative in the Mayborn Best American Newspaper Narrative contest and will appear in anthology of 2016 newspaper narratives published by UNT Press.
Photo: Michael Ciaglo
Houston dams are old, beat up and a vital line of defense
Maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers, Addicks and Barker dams prevent catastrophic flooding in swampy Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city. Now they pose a risk to the city they were built to protect.
Harris County Jail considered ‘unsafe and unhealthy’ for inmates, public
By default, the Harris County Jail is one of Houston’s largest medical providers. But records and inmate accounts indicate the sprawling lockup has serious issues when it comes to medical care it is obligated to provide for thousands inmates.
Photo: Jon Shapley
Proposed bail reforms offer support to the ill
Belinda Hernandez, a mother charged with neglect after failing to administer medicine to her son, nearly died after spending 15 months in the Harris County Jail when she was unable to afford bail.
Art: Boris Pelcer
For years, Michael Patrick McManus built a web of lies about his military service. His life offers a window into the complicated nature of stolen valor.
