On October 30, 2009, our community suffered the enormous and irreplaceable loss of Ms. Michele Renee deLaFreniere.  Michele was a prominent figure spanning the LGBT communities, as well as Scottsdale city government and local media.  

Michelle's influence was far reaching and shall be enduring.  She was the incredibly rare combination of charismatic leadership coupled with a true commitment to improving the lives of others.  The tragedy of her untimely death at age 54 is made all the more poignant when one considers the enormous potential for progress that will now never be realized.  The extent of the impact she could have made will never be known, but was obvious to any who knew her.  Leaders of her ilk come along once in a generation.

Born July 17, 1955 as Kenneth Edward McMunn Culver, in the unfortunately male physical form that never fit her, she spent most of her youth a resident of Freport, Long Island, New York.  She was also a military brat, traveling to different parts of the world and living for a time in Okinawa, Japan.  Like so many gender dysphoric youth, she saw transsexual pioneer Christine Jorgensen as a hero and wished she could follow in her footsteps.  She recounted that she didn’t find it out until later in life, but as a child, she lived down the street from Christine Jorgensen.  She graduated from Freeport High School, Freeport, New York, Graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, New York.  Also, like so many gender dysphoric youth, she couldn’t see Christine’s path as an option available to her, and instead hoped to relieve the pain of living in the wrong body and bring honor to her family by entering the military and being killed in Viet Nam.  The Viet Nam war ended just as she was coming of age to enlist.

She was a modern dancer in New York City in the early 70’s, when she danced with an off-Broadway dance company.  She liked to talk about her time dancing at the legendary Studio 54 in New York City in its heyday.  She was passionate about music and dance throughout her life, with a special love for dance music of the 80’s.  After moving to Scottsdale in 1994, she adopted the night club Anderson’s 5th Estate as something of a second home, and much of her social life revolved around there for over a decade.

Michele married Lisa Culver on 9/30/83; their love for each other brought two beautiful children into the world, Kenneth E. Culver, Jr. born 02/04/1988 and Melissa M. Culver born 04/30/92.  They lived in Belmore, New York where they both owned a bike store named The Little Red Bike Shop and the largest indoor skateboard park known as SkateBoard Madness.  After selling the businesses, they made their home in Scottsdale, AZ in August of 1994.  Michele’s wife Lisa traveled the journey with Michele as long and as far as she could.  After mutually agreeing, they parted ways in May 2006 and remained best of friends till the end.

She eventually became interested in cycling.  She operated the business Dr. Bike in New York, which was for a time the only recumbent bicycle dealer in the US, gaining world-wide notoriety in cycling circles.  Everyone who did business with her knew her as "Doc".  Michele developed a great passion for this laid-back design for the bicycle, and was instrumental in their design and promotion in this country.  She once sold one of her bikes to the King of Morocco, who reportedly sent his private jet to New York just to pick up a part from Michele for his bike.  Michele also owned and operated the largest indoor skateboard park in New York.

Michele built a completely enclosed recumbent bike that she took to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  While riding it at The Brickyard, she broke the world's recumbent bike speed record with it.  She held this title for a very short time because someone broke her record shortly thereafter.

Michele was the great grandchild of Ransom E. Olds, the founder of the Oldsmobile automobile company, the first successful automobile manufacturer in the United States.  Perhaps inspired by that fine genetic heritage, she was an avid car enthusiast.  She once built a twin turbo charged Camaro, which was the stuff of legend.  Michele described it as a "beast".  In recent years, she could often be seen cruising the streets in her beloved 1973 Camaro Z28 with the words "SCARY FAST" emblazoned across the rear window and full length side pipes issuing a warning to all who dare challenge.  Michele kept a well equipped auto shop in her home, and enjoyed working on, repairing, and improving her own vehicles.

Michele moved her bicycle shop from New York to Scottsdale in 1995 and continued to operate the largest recumbent store in the United States.  She was very successful in her business there until she tried to carry out her gender transition.  It devastated her business.  Children’s bicycles were a large part of her business, and parents kept their children away.    Michele was forced to sell her bike shop in 2005.

She became a school bus driver working for the Scottsdale Elementary School District.  She called her bus "Big Boo", and she incidentally called her Dodge Caravan "Baby Boo".  She continued in that position until her cancer made it impossible for her to continue.  She also worked for a program that took in donated bikes, fixed them up, and sold them to raise charitable funds.

Michele got appointed to a seat on the Scottsdale Human Relations Commission in 2002  This is the branch of Scottsdale city government which oversees human rights and equal treatment of all citizens.  She received the appointment while she was still living as male.  She transitioned while still on that body, and gained a second term, this time as female.  She became the commission chair, and is the only transsexual to hold a position in Scottsdale city government.

While chair of the commission, she proposed a proclamation to submit to the mayor proclaiming Scottsdale’s support for the LGBT community, and naming June LGBT month.  She got it passed by the commission and sent to the mayor.  When Mayor Mary Manross got it, she rewrote it as a general proclamation of support for equal rights, and removed all mention of LGBT people from it.  This greatly upset Michele, and created friction between the mayor and the LGBT community.

Saturday, November 25, 2006, Michele and her roommate at the time were barred from entering the night club Anderson’s 5th Estate by Tom Anderson himself, initiating a public battle that raged between Anderson and the local transgender community led by Michele that lasted for nearly a year.  At stake for the transgender community was opposing discrimination against transgender people which had the potential of spreading to other businesses.  Michele assumed early on that she could count on the support of other leaders in the trans-community, but instead found entrenched opposition to any sort of public action on behalf of transgender rights.  The war that raged within the trans community was far greater than what was seen at the public level.  This struggle represented a fundamental paradigm shift away from the old attitude of hiding from prejudice to a new paradigm of standing up to it.  Michele led the way to bringing transgender pursuit of equality out of the shadows and into the full light of day.

For this she paid a dear price.  She counted on the media being on her side.  At first, most of the local media ignored her, except for Phoenix New Times, which appeared sympathetic in initial interviews, but then used the information she gave them to lampoon her mercilessly and repeatedly for months.  New Times columnist Stephen Lemons spewed out hate speech and epithets at Michele which were she a member of any other minority group facing equivalent verbal assault would have had lead to protesters in the street and Lemons unemployed by the end of the day.  Radio talk show hosts publicly ridiculed her.  Public comments attached to online articles about her showed no limits to contempt and derision.  Refusal of the media to respect her privacy embarrassed and impacted her children, for which she was very visibly upset.  None of this stopped her.  She was at times emotionally wounded by it all, but she fought on toward a cause she knew was right.

The dispute with Tom Anderson was settled through mutual agreement on Friday, November 9, 2007 in a meeting with Michele and Tom, as well as other representatives from the gay, lesbian, and transgender communities.  Michele came back to Anderson’s 5th Estate, her old second home, the next night with great joy in her heart.  A month later, Tom would close down Anderson’s 5th Estate and turn it into Club Forbidden, catering to the gay community.  Michele was invited to and attended the opening night festivities.

Throughout all of this, Michele continued in her position as chair of the Scottsdale Human Relations Commission.  Maintaining her position as a public official responsible for preventing discrimination while being at the center of a firestorm over it became a delicate balancing act for her.  Michele utilized her position as chair of the commission to move for the proposal of three LGBT anti-discrimination ordinances for Scottsdale.  She argued that the situation at Anderson’s, the attacks against a gay couple outside a Scottsdale restaurant that year, and the Mayor’s removal of LGBT from the proclamation were all giving Scottsdale a bad image in the LGBT community, and a positive affirming gesture by the city was in order.  Through Michele’s leadership, the proposed ordinances were advanced to the Scottsdale city council.

At the city council hearing over the ordinances, a tremendous show of community support turned out.  Dozens of members of the trans-community turned out, in greater numbers even than by the gay and lesbian communities.  It was the greatest show of political activism the trans community this city had ever seen.  Michele was enormously proud of the support shown by her community.  The Scottsdale City council passed the first ordinance banning discrimination in city employment, but voted down the ordinances dealing with private employers and public accommodations.  The measure passed was the first gender identity supportive ordinance in the city, and Michele counted it as one of her greatest achievements.

Michele had a melanoma tumor removed from her upper left arm in 2007.  Then, many months later, another tumor appeared on her upper right breast.  That too was removed, along with the lymph nodes on her right side.  Then a tumor appeared on her sternum.  This began her long and difficult fight with cancer.

Michele was endlessly devoted to the LGBT community, with personal emphasis on the trans-community.  Her focus never strayed far from forming plans, setting goals, and carrying out actions to improve the lives of trans-people in Arizona.  She was the primary driver in forming Arizona Trans Alliance, a group which seeks to be a face and political representation for the transgender community in our state.  She sought to strengthen the trans-community and build bridges between the various groups and parties within it.  She reached out to the gay and lesbian communities.  She was the first chair of the Human and Equal Rights Organizers (HERO) steering committee.  She served on the board at This Is H.O.W. transgender halfway house.  She would speak at colleges and universities to help educate the greater public about transgender issues.  Even as her health was failing and people encouraged her to focus on herself, she organized the first state-wide transgender leadership summit to try to form greater connectivity and cooperation across the community.  Michele's last official political action was speaking on behalf of a domestic partner registry before the Mesa Human Relations Advisory Board when she was so sick from her cancer that she needed a wheelchair to attend.  Right up until near the end, as she was literally lying on her deathbed, when she was told of the passage of the Matthew Sheppard Hate Crimes Bill in Congress, the first ever piece of federal legislation positively recognizing trans-people, she cried tears of joy.  She just barely touched a world where our government gave some positive recognition and protections for her people.  A lifetime of sacrifice the fruits of which only others would enjoy.

Michele never lost her child-like love of fun.  She could always mix work and pleasure, and knew how to have a good time.  Her boundless energy, effervescent spirit, unbridled optimism, outgoing nature, and depth of character gave her an undeniably magnetic personality that drew people to her.  That ability to be liked, be inspirational, be out in front, and be fearless made her a natural charismatic leader the likes of which comes along once in a generation.  There were so many things she wanted to do.  She was the kind of person who was always thinking and coming up with new ideas.  She was endlessly planning and strategizing ways to advance her community socially, politically, and legally.  She had aspirations of running for office.  The potential of what she could have achieved was enormous, making her loss devastatingly poignant.

Michele was a loving father, spouse, and most of all a best friend.  Caring for others and working for the betterment of her community were the driving forces in her life.  She touched so many lives and so many hearts, her mourners are too numerous to count.

Michele is survived by her Son Kenneth, her daughter Melissa, her Dad John and Mother Lorie, her bothers John and Christian, her sister Susan, her nieces Allison and Kaitlin, her nephews Clifford, Garrett, Scott and Riley and a loving ex-wife Lisa who was with her until the very end.  She is also survived by the many communities she was a part of, and the many self-chosen families she loved and who loved her.

A memorial service is being planned for December.  For information, please contact .

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