Lana Tisdel
Lana M. Tisdel is an American woman whose early life and involvement with the December 1993 [...] of Brandon Teena, Lisa Lambert, and Phillip DeVine at the hands of John Lotter and Tom Nissen is chronicled in the 1998 documentary The Brandon Teena Story and the 1999 film Boys Don't Cry (which left out DeVine). She was portrayed in the film by Chloë Sevigny, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance.
Background
In the fall of 1993, Tisdel, aged 18, met Brandon Teena, 20, through their mutual friends. Teena was new to the close-knit area, from Lincoln, Nebraska, and the local crowd was curious about him. Teena and Tisdel began seeing each other, with Tisdel believing that Teena was a cisgender man.
In 1993, after some legal trouble, Teena moved to the Falls City region of Richardson County, Nebraska, where he presented as a man. He became friends with several residents. After moving into the home of Lisa Lambert,
On December 19, 1993, Teena was arrested for forging checks; Tisdel used money from her father to pay his bail. Because Teena was in the female section of the jail, Tisdel learned that he was transgender. When Tisdel later questioned him about his gender, he told her he was a hermaphrodite pursuing a [...] change operation, and they continued dating. In a lawsuit regarding the film adaptation Boys Don't Cry, this was disputed by Tisdel. Teena's arrest was posted in the local paper under his birth name, and thereupon his acquaintances learned that he was assigned female at birth.
During this time, Teena began associating with ex-convicts John L. Lotter (born May 31, 1971) and Marvin Thomas "Tom" Nissen (born October 22, 1971);
Lotter and Nissen shot and killed Teena, Lambert, and DeVine. Lambert's son, Tanner, was in the house at the time and was unharmed. Tisdel was not present at the time of the [...], as it took place inside Lambert's home in Humboldt, Nebraska, a 30-minute drive away from Falls City, where Tisdel lived with her mother and sister. The bodies were discovered the next day by Lambert's mother, Anna Mae.
Aftermath
Lana Tisdel, her sister Leslie, and mother Linda were all involved in the criminal trial and later lawsuits that followed the [...] and later, movie development. The Tisdel family appeared on the TV shows Maury and A Current Affair, to discuss Teena and the trial proceedings. The Tisdel family did not get along well with Teena's mother, Jo Ann Brandon, and his sister, Tammy, who accused Tisdel of being responsible for the [...].
Lana Tisdel sued the creators of the film Boys Don't Cry for using her name and likeness without permission; the suit was settled out of court. Leslie Tisdel was vocal about the film's script changes and upset that her boyfriend who was [...], Phillip DeVine, was not included in the film, nor was she; instead, the film focused on Brandon Teena. There has been scrutiny that the lack of information about DeVine, who was from Iowa, was because he was African American, and Leslie stated she believed he had been left out of the story because of racism.
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