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Criminals contacted included prostitutes, drug abusers, sex offenders, and [[murder]]ers. A 22-year-old [[transvestite]] named Darrell Wayne Kahler was interviewed late in 1957, when the program was local in scope, ran late on Sunday evenings on WFAA, and had not yet joined the ABC schedule. According to a news article in ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' [[magazine]], on December 30, 1957, Kahler was supplied to ''Confession'' by the police, who had arrested him as a drunken woman being molested by three men. The officers did not discover his sex until he reached the station house. The police permitted Kahler to get into a cocktail dress for a filmed re-enactment of his arrest. Wyatt used the film and then placed the camera on Kahler in a jail uniform behind bars.<ref name=time>{{cite web|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,810213,00.html#ixzz17UPLNMTC|title=Television: ''Confession''|date=December 30, 1957|publisher=''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]''|accessdate=December 7, 2010; no longer accessible on-line but in library copies or microfilm}}</ref>​

Criminals contacted included prostitutes, drug abusers, sex offenders, and [[murder]]ers. A 22-year-old [[transvestite]] named Darrell Wayne Kahler was interviewed late in 1957, when the program was local in scope, ran late on Sunday evenings on WFAA, and had not yet joined the ABC schedule. According to a news article in ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' [[magazine]], on December 30, 1957, Kahler was supplied to ''Confession'' by the police, who had arrested him as a drunken woman being molested by three men. The officers did not discover his sex until he reached the station house. The police permitted Kahler to get into a cocktail dress for a filmed re-enactment of his arrest. Wyatt used the film and then placed the camera on Kahler in a jail uniform behind bars.<ref name=time>{{cite web|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,810213,00.html#ixzz17UPLNMTC|title=Television: ''Confession''|date=December 30, 1957|publisher=''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]''|accessdate=December 7, 2010; no longer accessible on-line but in library copies or microfilm}}</ref>​

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In a contralto voice, Kahler said that he earned his living as a nightclub B girl. Kahler said that he had never known his father and that his mother had "a lot of marriages." He said that schoolmates had long taunted him and that he was a chain smoker who used large quantities of [[alcohol]] in despair. The program was shocking by the television standards of the 1950s.<ref name=time/>​

In a contralto voice, Kahler said that he earned his living as a nightclub B girl. Kahler said that he had never known his father and that his mother had "a lot of marriages." He said that schoolmates had long taunted him and that he was a chain smoker who used large quantities of [[alcohol]] in despair. The program was shocking by the television standards of the 1950s, particularly in Dallas, at the time a [[conservative]] city.<ref name=time/>​

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[[Methodist]] minister Walter Underwood joined the program to say that his denomination does not condemn transvestites but offers "its sympathy, its help, its counsel." A [[psychiatrist]], John C. Montgomery, said that Kahler's conditions "can be helped if it can be gotten to soon enough. He's been trying to be like his mother all his life. Physically, organically, there's no reason in the world why this should be. He has all the attributes of the male—except for the fact that he doesn't want to be." Montgomery said that the "problem can be laid at the parents' doorstep."<ref name=time/>

[[Methodist]] minister Walter Underwood joined the program to say that his denomination does not condemn transvestites but offers "its sympathy, its help, its counsel." A [[psychiatrist]], John C. Montgomery, said that Kahler's conditions "can be helped if it can be gotten to soon enough. He's been trying to be like his mother all his life. Physically, organically, there's no reason in the world why this should be. He has all the attributes of the male—except for the fact that he doesn't want to be." Montgomery said that the "problem can be laid at the parents' doorstep."<ref name=time/>

As Kahler returned to jail on a vagrancy conviction, calls flooded the WFAA switchboard. One caller declared the transvestite episode a "disgrace," but 80 percent of the callers favored keeping ''Confession'' on the air.<ref name=time/> The case became public enough to make ABC pick the program nationally late in the spring of 1958.​

As Kahler returned to jail on a vagrancy conviction, calls flooded the WFAA switchboard. One caller declared the transvestite episode a "disgrace," but 80 percent of the callers favored keeping ''Confession'' on the air.<ref name=time/> The case became public enough that ABC picked up the program nationally late in the spring of 1958.​

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