They get into his head a little bit. He has been in a relationship with a woman for many years and she is supportive of what he has done. He supposes he might be a male lesbian as he wants to keep his original parts and just wanted to add a set of boobs to feel and appear more authentic as a female just to suit himself (IMO he needs a lot more than that - but it could be he has extremely poor eyesight).
But he is successful in business and seemingly not a complete idiot. Being his own boss makes his acting on his desires less a career limiting move than it otherwise might be.
But while wanting to change himself he doesn't want Silverton to change, and he ran for office on an anti-growth platform. Personally I don't think that's so bad for a small town if the residents want it to remain small and relatively quiet. I want to live in a small town again, as I did in my youth, and hopefully that will be happening very soon. When I get there I'll be hoping it stays that way, and I certainly don't want to have to pay for street and sewer assessments & new systems costs made necessary by a large influx of folks who came after me. That's the sort of thing that Silverton is facing now and it's a tough thing balancing what most folks in a town want vs. property rights of a relative few.
For whatever reason, the folks of Silverton have looked beyond Stu's weirdness to what they believe his capabilities are. Assuming the situation there is what it seems to be, if I lived there I'd probably say more power to him.
But I'd still say he's weird.
A Californian friend sent me a TV news story on this...she said something like “whoa...and it isn’t even California!”
Transvestite Mayor To Rule Oregon Town
http://www.kcra.com/video/17931796/index.html
It’s interesting to me, sociologically, to see how this is reported, as well as to listen to the interviews and ponder a town of 10,000 electing him. Every day, I realize more and more how I don’t understand my fellow American very well.