Transgender Widow: Exclusive Footage

HOUSTON - It's a powerful interview you'll see only on FOX 26 News. We've obtained exclusive rights to a video featuring Nikki Araguz more than a decade ago.

She's the transgendered widow of Wharton firefighter Thomas Araguz, who died battling an egg farm fire July 4th. His mother and ex-wife are now suing Nikki Araguz says she has no legal rights to his assets because she was born a man. Texas doesn't recognize same-sex marriages.

In the video shot 15 years ago by a local college student, some light is shed on Nikki's conflicted life. The video was for a film project that was never completed. Nikki would have been 19 or 20 at the time. Throughout the video she appears feminine and playful, but it doesn't take long before Nikki starts talking about her tortured identity.

"I was in elementary school when I first realized I was different than the other little boys," said Nikki.

Nikki says her mother and stepfather took her to the doctor.

"The doctor said, 'Well buy him boy toys. Buy him G.I. Joe and don't let him play with Barbie, and make sure you dress him up as a boy as much as possible.' Well as hard as I tried to be a boy people always thought I was a girl," she said.

In the nearly hour long interview, Nikki talks about her intense desire to be a girl even though physically that wasn't the case.

"At that time I thought I was gay. I didn't even realize boys could be girls, that that was something that could feasibly happen," she said.

By the time she was seven or eight Nikki says she tried dressing up like a girl when no one was home.

"I felt comfortable. I felt like now I'm a girl, you know, and it was really nice. A real nice relief because I kind of felt like I should. Then I would hurry up and take a shower and wash all the makeup off before anyone came home and caught me," she said.

Nikki says for the most part her family was loving and supportive, but she was still afraid of what others thought.

"In 7th grade I transferred to a performing arts middle school called Gregory Lincoln. I made some incredible friends that gave me the strength to be who I was and not to worry about what people were going to think about me and what people said about me because they taught me it didn't matter," she said.

For the first time, Nikki went out dressed like a girl on Halloween.

"I mean I looked hot. I wore heels and this black sexy, slutty outfit, and I looked good. People were shocked," she said.

From that point on, Nikki says she received a lot of attention from boys.

"I was such a sexual object. I felt this freedom that I was who I was supposed to be. I was finally a girl. Regardless this is something I decided I wanted to do a lot more often," she said.

Toward the end of high school, Nikki says she started going out five nights a week dressed as a woman.

"Finally I became quite unhappy coming home and having to wake up in the morning and be a boy, having to start college as a boy, get a job as a boy knowing I was really a woman. Then it was like I can't do this night and day thing. I'm not Jekyll and Hyde. I have to be a woman all the time, 24 hours a day 7 days a week for the rest of my life because it wasn't going to work any other way," she said.

Nikki says she began dressing as a woman full time after high school.

"When I first became a woman and all the guys were hitting on me I mean it was like, 'whoa all these guys want me,'" she said.

Nikki doesn't speak about her medical history, only saying she achieved her feminine look naturally.

"It was a severe mess up on nature's part. Somewhere the sperm hit the egg in the wrong section, knocked something out rather than knocking it in," she said.

"If I were to start on hormone pills I think I would have huge breasts. I would love having huge breasts," she adds.

"I think about a sex change all the time. I mean I would love it. I've dreamt about it for years and years and years," said Nikki.

Nikki says she battled self esteem issues and allowed men to use her as a sex object.

"The most common reaction (from men) is, 'Oh wow I want to experiment,'" she said.

"Only one time has someone gotten hostile and violent. Needless to say I got the hell out of dodge hunny," Nikki said.

Along the way Nikki says she discovered her self worth and began to think about true love.

"I think that's my biggest goal to find a partner to share all the love I have to share. I want a husband, house and kids and a Volvo station wagon. It's what I want. I would love to be married. I would love it," said Nikki.

Nikki has said her relationship with Thomas Araguz was the real deal. But in the end a court will have to decide if she has legal rights to assets because she was born a man.