Adrienne Kerr
The Person I See
I have never quite understood what fuels the negativity some have towards the LGBTQA community. Because of this, I have created a book that hopefully inspires those in the community and empowers the readers through the subject’s words. It explores the strength, inspiration and love of the individuals through their unique stories to encourage recognition and acceptance throughout the community. I wanted to distance myself from the media’s portrayal of LGBTQA and create something real which is why this book is a collaboration project, to build accurate representation and bring truth to the subject. I’ve recorded a significant time in LGBTQA history; as outsiders we can see these individuals and embrace their stories. Each person has their own story to give the viewer a deeper understanding and to engage personally with the photographs and text. As a society, we need to strive to advance our efforts in moving towards a time in which the world is free of violence and prejudice towards the community. There are always support systems and groups who will welcome you with open arms. A place where you can be your true self. Thank you to those who shared their stories.
Rhys
‘I’ve cross-dressed once or twice; it’s refreshing to feel like someone different.’
The Person I See I can’t believe the person I see, I can now be all I want to be. When I close my eyes and look inside, I will never again feel the need to hide. I have no doubt there will be struggles ahead, And If I had not come out I would most certainly be dead. But being open makes me strong and free, And the world can now know and see the real me. I now smile, no longer cry. I want to live, not die. I know my friends will hear me through, The barriers and tearful times that were never there for you. It has taken so long to look beyond the hate and prejudice that ruled my life, So now I look at the new me, and yes I love what I see. My new life and me.
Rachel and Carol
‘This is the late 60’s where people are being persecuted and put into prison just for being gay. What on earth would they do to someone like me?’
‘A
round about the age of 8, I realised I was different. The first experience I had was in our front room at home as a boy playing with a sword; My mum was altering the curtains on the front window which were made of red velvet, and there was some on the floor which I picked up and put around me when she left the room. I don’t know why but I just felt different or happier. Of course, my mum walked in and said ‘What are you doing? And I said ‘Oh, I’m a Roman centurion’ and picked up my sword and there I was
as a Roman Centurion. And that has actually stuck in my mind. Why did I go and pick this piece of cloth up and put it round my waist? And also, why did I feel guilty when my mum asked me what I was doing, and immediately try to cover it up? Round about the age of 15 me and my friends all gathered together every night as a little gang, and I remember there was a girl at school who’s in the next age group. She was in the 6th form, and I was in the 4th form; her name was Dorothy, everyone
called her Dot. And I said, “What do you think of Dot?” And they said “Oh she’s alright isn’t she!” and I got this conversation around to the fact that she’d got breast surgery, which is a big thing when you’re growing up and I said, “Have you ever worn a bra?”, And my two friends went “What, of course not! Where did that come from?” What I was trying to do was explore what was going on in my head, because I was actually wearing my mum’s bra and her clothing even at that age and really thinking ‘Is this normal, do other people do this or am
I just mad or something?’ So I tested it out and of course they looked at me dumbfounded and said: “Well, of course, we don’t wear a bra.” And I thought ‘Oh okay, I won’t mention that again!’ There was an incident with my mum, she always wore white bras, and I don’t know why but I remember I had some dirty magazines and I’d got them hidden in my bedroom. Through looking through these pictures, I’d had this idea I wanted a black bra. So, I got some Quink ink, put it in a
saucepan, put my mums white bra in and made it go black then wore it and got Quink ink all over me. The next day I was going to school so I left the saucepan with the bra in it on the top of my wardrobe because I couldn’t think of anywhere else to put it. Eventually, my mum found it, and she said ‘Whats going on here?’ I said, ‘Oh, one of your bras must have dropped down on the floor when you were putting it in the washing basket. I picked it up and at the same time I was doing that, my fountain pen ink went on it and therefore I thought I might as
well make it all black rather than have it stained.’ And she actually believed it funnily enough because I asked her the question later on, as in a few years ago, ‘did you realise then what I was doing?’ And she said no. Also, another little incident was at that time my grandmother came to live with us because she had dementia. I was out in the shed, and by this time I’d got stockings and suspenders and all my mums stuff such as bra and dress, and I’m in there trying to put stockings on. I’d forgotten to lock the shed door, so my grandmother came into the shed
and just looked at me, and she went ‘Oh!’ and shut the door and walked out, and that was never uttered. She never spoke a word to anyone about that which is unbelievable. I just find it astounding. She either accepted what I was doing, and she didn’t want to embarrass me by telling my mum, or she just put it out of her mind like ‘I didn’t see that.’
it brought up the question, ‘How on earth do you get to that?’
This is the late 60’s, a long time ago, and actually, even then I think they were putting gays in prison, so at that time gays are being persecuted and put into prison just for being gay so what on earth would they do to someone like me?
You’re obviously questioning at that age what on earth’s going on. I’d imagine if you have gone to a doctor at that point they’d have said ‘It’s just part of growing up and you’ll grow out of it.’ As you go through puberty with those thoughts, you’re obviously with male friends, and you’re being pushed into that male world. You want to prove to not only your friends, but also to yourself that all this stuff that’s going on actually isn’t true; actually, you’re alright and at some point, you’re going to grow out of it, it’ll go away, and you’ll be okay.
There’s no internet, there’s no TV that’s explaining all of this, and the only thing that actually came out was the news of the world did an expose on April Ashley who’s one of the first trans people to come out and have a sex change. I kept that cut out of the paper for ages and ages because I was thinking ‘I want to be that, I want to do that.’ To understand I wasn’t just the only person was amazing, but
One of the things that tend to happen is you start to do manly tough and rough things, so I started playing rugby to prove to myself that I was a bloke. I started doing that when I was 14 and a half and then on an evening when my parents were out I’d be dressing up again. What actually happened was the two lives started to run a parallel course. I’m with all my mates, and we’re going out were drinking
now which is a new experience at 14 and a half, and we’re drinking heavily. On the other side of this, I’m actually getting away with dressing up. I had two lives going at the same time. I joined the airforce September 1969 as an apprentice playing rugby not dressing as much as I could be. There’s nowhere to go, and I didn’t have my own clothes, I’d always had my mums, but now there are no clothes so in a way that was quite good. I joined because my dad was in the airforce during the war and it just seemed the thing to do at the time. A lot of trans people do join the forces – whether it’s in their subconscious as ‘Well if I do this is constrained within that military regime I can’t do the other things so actually, this will sort it out.’ It didn’t. Jump to 73’ because that is when I meet my current wife, Carol. She was a barmaid part time at one of the pubs we used to go to. At this time I’m playing rugby for the RAF under 21’s. Carol and I move in together and then in 76’ we get married. That was 40 odd
years ago. Of course, now I’m with my wife, she’s got women’s clothes, and off we go again, so none of this stuff had actually worked. Whatever was in my brain was still there. My wife Carol didn’t realise I was putting her stuff on; I continued with this secret life, and there were times when I’d get this pang of guilt which said, ‘This is absolutely ridiculous, this is stupid I shouldn’t be doing this!’ I’d get all the clothes and throw them all away and then a month or two later I’d be getting more. Now I’ve actually got to the point of going into shops and buying stuff, saying I was buying it for my wife, so I was using her as an excuse to buy things. She never saw the clothes at the time and didn’t know. In 1978 I got found out for the first time; I’m up in the loft as that’s where I kept the clothes. I thought I’d put something on while I’m up there. Carol called up asking what I was doing, I didn’t realise that she could see I was actually wearing something different to what I’d gone up in. She asked ‘What are you wearing?’ And that’s when I
realised I had been caught. There’s what I call a kamikaze thing going on here. You’re doing this in secret, and you’re actually wanting someone to find out because you’re carrying a great big weight of secrecy which is entwined with guilt as you’re actually keeping it from someone else. So in a way, because you actually haven’t got the guts to say It because you’re afraid of the consequences, If somehow someone sees you it’s not really your fault at all, and therefore you’re wishing someone’s going to find you. So I told Carol, and she was not particularly happy. I said, ‘Don’t worry I’ll burn all this lot’, and I threw it away in her presence to make her think everything would be okay. She was very upset that I was doing this because in the first place I was not telling her and that created distrust. If I’d been lying about this, what else have I been lying about? So it starts to sew all sorts of seeds in other people’s minds who have no idea what this is about because again this wasn’t mainstream back then. No one knew much about it except a few bits and
pieces, but if you weren’t interested, you’d never pick it up. She signed up for this rough rugby playing bloke not this other ‘thing.’ From her point of view, she does not want to know anything about this. Your life has gone on in this way, this gets thrown in, and you think this will go away, so you put your head in the sand as you don’t want to know. She blanked it out, ‘It’s your problem, you’re causing this, you sort it out.’ So I got rid of the clothes, and for 2/3 months I kept away from it all, but of course, eventually, I just went back to how I was but just made sure she didn’t find out any more. This was in 77’, so I was 34. In 1985 I went to Germany for 4 years and carried on dressing there. Carol doesn’t know that I’m still dressing, or she doesn’t want to know, and that’s the way it stayed all the way for the rest of our lives up to 2003. And I’d always hoped that Carol sort of knew what was going on but doesn’t want to go there because it’s too difficult.
However, obviously the internet has gone mad and everyone on the internet now and there are all sorts of groups. All of that’s happening, and because of the internet, it’s all available to see, and you suddenly realise there are loads of people doing this which I’ve never really thought about before. Now I’m becoming interested in all these other people and in my job I go out to sales meetings and other meetings in the country so then start to find out if I’m going near a town with a group night, I’d join and see what it’s all about. Of course, the dresses get better and because I’m on business I go in a skirt suit. Not to the meeting but to this group. In a way I’m living that life as it, it was for real. There are people who will go in miniskirts and suspenders so when I went to this one do I met this girl, and she was going to buy me a drink but when she leant across the bar to get them you could see the tops of her stockings. I thought I don’t want anything to do with what I call the seedier side of it, I just want to be ‘normal’ whatever that is.
All this heightened my interest even more; I kept this secret all this time and suddenly realised I could do this. So I started to approach it with Carol that I was still dressing up and I was getting to the point where I was going to have to do something. 6 years ago we bought a flat down in Bournemouth and I said to her what I’d like to do is live as a woman in that flat. So we will have a place that we will both live as two women in that flat and let’s see how it goes. And if we can actually live together through that then there’s hope at the end of the line. While I didn’t come out, I did when we went to Bournemouth as I actually wore women’s clothing and lived with Carol. At the start it was terrible, Carol was not happy what so ever and she could not see how we could get through this. Mainly because of physiology. I was 6ft which is big for a woman, manly voice, 5oclock shadow, big chin, busted nose from rugby, looked like a bloke in a skirt and actually without doing something about that Carol didn’t want to go out with me because she’s now walking at
a bloke in a skirt. We got comments like ‘spot the tranny’. Bournemouth is a place where people go for stag nights, there were young men on the piss, and while I could handle it my wife didn’t want to be there, but we continued, and she put up with it. I wore wigs, but it didn’t make a different. For me, I was enjoying it to a point because I could go out and be out in the open, but you can’t notice people staring at you. That actually coloured my decision for later. About 2012 I said we’re going to have to do this. I used to go to GlossCats which actually gave me a lot of support, only supporting as much as you could go to talk to like minded people, and among those like minded people were individuals who’d actually done the whole thing. The first thing Carol said to me was ‘okay we’ll divorce then’, and I said we don’t have to necessarily do that, why don’t we try work our way through it and while it’s not good for you, we could still do this.’ Most divorces for any reason, go through because of no ones willing to compromise, and I realised that I
had to compromise for the time being so while I don’t want to compromise on the end result I need to take the time to get her through this. Someone actually said its like rowing across a river; what you’ve done is leave everyone ashore because you’re miles in front of everyone because you’ve been living with for all this time. You know what it’s like because it’s in your psyche, in your being, in your DNA, and actually what you’ve got to do is turn that boat around, row all the way back, pick them up and start rowing from there. And I thought that is so true and that’s what I did. Over many sessions of talking and also to allay her fears. First of all, I had the 5 o’clock shadow, and I thought I’ve got to get rid of it so I started LPL which is a light source which zaps the roots, hurts like hell but that took 1 years worth to get rid of everything. At the same time, I started to go to the doctor. The doctor didn’t have a clue, so I printed off all the stuff the NHS on this subject and I went in and said, ‘I’m pretty sure I’m Trans because I’ve been doing this
all the time, you probably don’t know anything about it’, and he said ‘no I don’t’, so I said, ‘Here are the books, I’ll come back in a few weeks time, and we’ll discuss it.’ Since I went the NHS, and I’ve been working with them on all of this, what they’ve now instituted is a diversity training, and there’s been a lot written by NHS which has gone out to GP surgeries to train not only the GP but their staff, so things have actually got better. What happens is you go to your GP, the GP refers you to the gender identity clinic which is what happened to me. First of all, you need funding, Oxfordshire decided to fund me to go, and I had surgery at the start of this year 2016. In the meantime I had facial feminization surgery which I paid for myself, I’ve spent about £20,000. Fortunately, I can afford it while many can’t, and that is the significant change. In the process, as I said earlier, what everyone sees is face first, and obviously, there are certain things in a males face which are different to a woman’s face. And if you actually iron it out as much as
you can then when people look at you then don’t see a bloke anymore, they see the shape of a woman’s face, and then they connect that with what you’re wearing, and it works. The next point is speaking. So if you sit down and you come out with this husky voice, and straight away people hear this, so you have to work on your voice. If you’ve got that voice, surgery doesn’t matter but what they see are the face and voice. And they are the most important things for being able to walk out in public and get away with it. So now I’ve had the breast augmentation, surgery down below, the face was done and voice I’ve manipulated myself, and here I am! An enormous amount of work has gone into it, but the point is, my wife and I are still together, and we’re probably happier now than we’ve ever been in the past. So there you are, and you’ve got this trans tendency, and you want to become a woman. It never even crossed my mind that I’d end up being lesbian. Not even in my mind did I see it until I did what I did by changing my
name and my passport and I thought, ‘my goodness!’ because Carol said ‘I don’t want to be a lesbian, I don’t want to be seen to be a lesbian’, and actually what we did was I changed my name to Rachel Hunt, but my name before that was different. Carol went back to her maiden name, so there are no connections between us. But after she got past the initial shot, everyone treats us as ordinary. We live together, and that’s that. I know a lot of people who’ve divorced from their other half but still talk to each other. Because for the wife, to admit they got it wrong and accept they’ve got a husband that likes to dress up is hard. How are they going to tell their friends and family? It’s not their fault, and they’re innocent in all of this. Sometimes people are willing to give a lot to get it back on track before you continue again. It depends on the man, but I would have thought a man wouldn’t deal with it very well, I don’t know the statistics, but I imagine it would end up as a divorce. There’s a guy in Gloscats who’s gone through that.
I know many people who’ve transitioned but some people don’t go as far as others. For example, Kelly: She looks like a boxer in a dress; She’s got a busted nose, big frame, she lives her life as a woman, but she hasn’t done anything with her voice. It’s a deep voice and her attitude is, ‘if anyone says anything to me, I’ll punch them.’ She’s done a tremendous amount for the trans community. A transvestite, or crossdresser, in general, is someone who lives their life as a bloke but dresses as a woman, then you’ve got transgender which is more than that. It’s the need to go further, where that line is, is quite difficult to see. The internet has helped a lot to move things forward. More people have come out, and more people have got used to it. The Nhs, all their systems have changed and brought in a new protocol which is being refined and the attitude of people has got better. Of course, there’s always parts of a society which will pick on a minority group whether race, sexuality, gender, there’s people out there who will have
a go given a chance. The rule of thumb is if you’re going to the toilet, you go to the one that you’ve dressed as. I remember I was at the service station and I got a real dirty look from this woman. This is in the 5oclock shadow phase, and she gave me a real dirty look as to say ‘why are you here, you should not be in here’ but she didn’t actually say anything but you could read her mind. If you’re a woman in a toilet, you know that you’re going to go in there and feel safe. As soon as you break that line, now you’ve got someone who’s just been sitting next to you who isn’t a woman at all. What are they doing? Are they getting a kick from listening to you pee or something? I’m not saying this is the same for everyone, but you can see where people might start thinking things are not right, I don’t care if you look like a woman or not, I know you’re a man, and you should not be in here. So that’s the counter argument, and for some women, if they’ve had problems with their husband or just feel nervous or insecure, that might be the trigger
that scares them. It’s complicated, it’s difficult, and even after I’d done all this, at work I had a lot of people who didn’t have a problem. I got up at AV awards for the industry I’m in, and it was the year 2013. I was in a dress, and while I hadn’t had any feminization at that point, I got up in front of around 750 people in the Hilton Park Lane for an award. I was up on stage with David Baddiel, a comedian, It’s all glitzy, and I’m euphoric. I’m on cloud 9, and I get back to work looking like a woman. I’d been in that industry for 10 years, and I was the face of the company and when I came in looking like a woman they didn’t know how to take all this. At this show I met this guy, he used to be the editor in chief of AV magazine, and I know him very well, and he said ‘can I give you some advice? Give us time to get used to this’, he said ‘we know you, you’ve been up there, and you’re the face of this company. Now you’ve just taken this away from us, and now you’re presenting yourself as completely different. We’ve got to get
used to that. You’ve had loads of time; you’ve had 50 odd years to understand where you need to be. You’ve got there which is great, we haven’t got a problem with that but give us time to get used to it.’ And I thought that is so right. That’s such a good thing you’ve just told me. Because I’m so euphoric of actually doing it and getting there that I’m just ploughing on like I did before but actually those guys out there have to go to adjust to it. It brought me down to earth, and I needed that. Because I knew him and because he was a bit of a sage in the industry, coming from him it all made sense, so I backed off. Now, it’s pretty much fine. That was 3 years ago, and I’m part of the women in AV group, and now it’s back as normal. One of the points in all of this is you can’t expect people just to instantly adjust to what you’ve just done. You’re euphoric in that you actually got there, but then you suddenly find out that the way people treated you as a bloke, is actually quite different to the way people treat you as a woman. Whereas people would have come up
to me where I work and ask for my suggestions, opinions or advice, they don’t anymore. I get bypassed. There I was, the face of the company, going out to all these people and specifying jobs, and now I’m sort of ignored. If you actually talk to the women in the company, they’re treated the same. Their worth isn’t much in comparison to the blokes. It’s just an attitude. The other strange thing is that the blokes don’t realise they’re offensive, or nasty at all; it’s just the way they are. It’s how they treat all women without thinking. In some respects, It’s quite nice as I don’t have to worry too much. Whereas I had a lot of responsibility before, that has been taken away and actually that’s fine as I’m busy enough as it is! In some respects, celebrities bring the issue forward but in others it makes it a media friendly star-studded thing. For the community, I don’t think it helped a huge amount except actually bring it to everyone’s attention and make it more into the mainstream viewer of media and star-studded stuff. Anything
that does that has a positive effect to take it to people’s attention, and you see that these people look beautiful and good to be on the front of Vanity Fair. Before that there was Caroline Cossey, she was a trans model, and nobody knew at the time, but she got outed by the news of the world however she actually did a huge amount back in the 80’s. My mum was fine, I knew she would be. I take after my mum, so I remember when I was a kid she used to always say Que sera sera and that how I’ve always been. I very rarely have a temper, if at all, I’ve got a good outlook on life, and I’ve always believed in being thoughtful about something, not just diving in and putting your point across without any thought. So that’s the way I am, and my mother is. I thought my dad would have had the problem, but he actually surprised me. He’s dead now, but he said ‘You’re a better daughter than you were a son’ and I thought, ‘isn’t that sweet. That’s so lovely to say that’. He was a bit of a tyrant, he had a bad temper but to say that I just thought, ‘wow’.
It did occur to me whether to hold off till they died, that actually went through my mind at one point, but I thought no, that’s silly. The other similar thought was coming out to the rugby guys. I’d kept an associate to the RAF rugby union because I was vice president and I used to go to the interservice games every year, and I’d meet up with people I’d been playing with all those years ago, and so I thought to myself, ‘shall I go as Rachel, or should I leave them with the memory that we had together. Should I shatter that memory?’ That’s what I had in my head. That’s the thought process I had. Do you leave it so the people you knew at that time, who you had all the memories with of the games together, or do you actually shatter that with something else? I came out to a friend of mine who I played with, and I asked him the question of whether or not I should go, and he said, ‘Yes, I’ll take you with me’. So this guy’s names Tony who I went with. My previous Christian name was Robert, but everyone who
I was playing with knew me as Bobby. We’re all meeting in this old Rothschild building and its beautiful with the chandeliers. I walk in on Tony’s arm, he gets a pint, and I get a glass of wine, and we’re walking through, and we come up with this guy called Sean. Sean and I, we started playing together in 1970, and we played all the way through the air force. So he was standing there, and he said, ‘Tony, it’s great seeing you, have you seen Bobby yet?’ The chat continues, and I was just standing there, they see me as a floozy as there’s probably only 3 women in this room. We’re entering the bloke’s world, and I’m just getting ignored. So Tony turns to Sean and says, ‘Talking about Bobby, if I was to tell you he was here now what would you say?’ And for the first time Sean actually looks at me up and down, and he turns back to Tony and our eyes met. Then a load of expletives come from Sean’s mouth and Tony said, ‘Sean, meet Rachel!’ Then it starts to go around the room, and they’re all looking and one of the guys who used to organise golf came over and said, ‘You’re not playing for the ladies
team!’ Then this continued through, and the guys were giving me hugs, and one of them said, ‘What you’ve done here and just walking through is so amazing.’ To actually just take it all in was great, to be standing here with people you put your life on the line for you and they’re so accepting was wonderful. In a way I wasn’t a bloke in a skirt, it was a complete change. That made it easier. I knew that I could walk in there and they actually see that this wasn’t a joke; It’s real, and this is all meaningful. And because of that, they took it more seriously. We’re all here on this planet, and we all do what we do. I believe in fate in a way, and if I’d have done it earlier, it probably wouldn’t have worked out as well as it has. My wife, she may have thought I’m young enough to go off and find someone else. Everyone’s different, and while there are generalities, there’s not a clear path for each person. Everyone’s got to be considered as an individual, and therefore everyone’s lives are different. Their circumstances and everyone’s life it touches is different. It might work
for you, but it might work for everyone. The main thing is understanding what you want to be, how far you want to go and then try work around that. And to have empathy for those around you, especially loved ones. And give them time to seek to understand what’s going on. Most people started with this a long time ago, it’s not suddenly a 5-minute whim. As far as their concerned its come quite normal but to everyone else it’s not. Just by that fact that you’ve lived like this for so long, you’ve gotta give people that time and not leave people behind. Tell your loved ones what you’re doing, it’s difficult to hide and keep it a secret for so long. But you can survive, I survived for 50 odd years.
Julien
‘I haven’t got a female name that I use when I dress, but I guess it could be Julie.’
‘I
first realised I liked women’s clothing at a young age when I tried on tights. I never tried on makeup when I was younger, but I always had a love for tights and pantyhose and always had an admiration for girls who could wear them freely without being judged. I thought it was wrong wearing tights as I considered It as a woman’s outfit, but around 10 years ago I started to wear high heels and dresses. Before then I’d only worn them maybe once
as a teen. It’s about 25 years later, and now I wear tights mainly in the winter. When I do dress, I prefer to do it when it’s cooler because of the style of clothes I like. It’s more difficult in the summer to wear a long sleeve dress with tights. At the moment I dress at home, but I’ve started going out in my car and driving around to work my confidence up. In the past years, I’ve contacted some women friends about liking to crossdress. Most reacted well, and three of them ended up giving me tips.
Two of the women that I told asked if I was now gay and never expected me to dress up. On the whole, I feel as though the advice has been good. I’ve been told some of the tights I choose aren’t right for me and the clothes I wear have been too tight which gives off the impression of me being a bitch. I’ve also been told I’m a body type H (shoulders align with the waist and hips) which has helped me dress to suit my body. I’m thankful that all the women
I’ve told have received the news well and have wanted to help me out. It did take some time to work up the courage, and I did have to think hard about how I’d tell them. In the end, I feel better for it as they’ve supported, guided and helped me feel secure In myself and now I know who my true friends really are. They are the ones who can accept the real me. When photographing myself, I tend to take pictures focusing on the outfit and end up cropping out my face; I like people to see what I’m wearing first. I only show people the whole photo when I feel I know them, as it’s hard to trust people on the internet. I have a daughter, my baby girl, she’s 7. I’m waiting to tell her about myself when she’s older. Her mother and I have a complicated relationship. She found out that I liked crossdressing by seeing a picture of myself that I’d taken in women’s clothes; she felt disturbed at the thought. We talked about it, but she refused to see me like that. She refuses to accept the fact that I cross-dress
which is why we’re not living together. She believes the clothes I was wearing are only for women and I wasn’t to wear them as I was there to be an example to our daughter. It’s a difficult situation, but I’ve found it’s better to show who I really am and not be accepted by one person than to hide my true self. I did think about stopping, but I guess the female side of me refuses. I think I dress for the aesthetic of being in women’s clothes and also the feeling I get. I’ll keep on dressing until my body looks ugly in the clothes that I wear. If I look back and think what I’d say to my younger self, it’s this: You should have started earlier in life. I don’t really feel self-conscious anymore because I’ve made progress to accept myself and become more open to letting people know about who I really am, but It will have made me more fearless and willing to talk to people easier. It’s easy to talk to people through Cross-dressing sites. I haven’t met
any other crossdressers face to face but I’ve talked with some online, they didn’t really give me any advice; most just wanted to hook up. I don’t feel as though I fit into any category of crossdresser because I don’t wear makeup, wigs or have fake boobs. I have tried, but I don’t like the feeling of going all the way. Maybe If I’d have taken my own advice, I would have found a woman who will have been accepting? I have tried looking for a woman but with no success, possibly due to my location. But I’m 35 years old and living in a small city. I’m constantly busy with work too. Sometimes I feel I should go back to France or somewhere else in Europe where I think I’d feel freer. I don’t know yet If I’d be able to leave my daughter, time will tell.
Shadows I am standing in the shadows; you can’t see me here. I am standing in the shadows absent from any dear. My life has floated by, boy to girl, man to woman, I no longer cry no longer care, I lived in hell, but I am no longer there. None of you see me in the shadows, cannot see the tears, My life taken, the pain and hurt forsaken, The struggle over after all these years. It had to end that life I knew, the one I hated, sometimes loved. The life I had was so untrue. I watch with sadness, anger and fear as you gently lower me into the ground, You cannot see me in the shadows, but my soul is all around. You walk away, I lay a rose, for myself and all of those. Whose lives were taken and forsaken, You did not see me, but never did, I am here, in the shadows, my pain as usual always hid.
Transgender Day of Rememberance 2016
‘C
ommunities all over the world gather together to hold ceremonies on the Transgender Day of Remembrance to share their respect and memorialise the trans people who have had their lives taken away due to transphobic violence. This day is a reminder of the constant struggle and fight trans people, as a community, have to survive through every year. It’s a day to acknowledge how far they have come, but also how far they still have
to go to end trans-related death. Those who sacrificed their life to live as their true selves will not be forgotten, neither will their courage to live free from harassment. They will be remembered by the community as people who fought for respect, as well as their dignity and their fundamental right to live and hoping their voices are being heard for future generations to live through a time of empowerment of the trans community. Coming out is filled with nervousness and euphoria; It should be celebrated,
not feared. So we hold a candle to the ones we have lost and look to the future to fight the continued destruction and hope for a time where the community is praised and not turned away.
Kate and Raye
‘I thought maybe this was a bedroom kink at first; this is just a good bit of fun.’
‘I
n April Kate turned to me and said: ‘Do you mind if I shave my legs?’ And I said ‘I don’t care, you can wear high heels, put lipstick on, I’m good.’ The next morning, she woke up and said, ‘Are you serious?’ And I said, ‘Serious about what?’ ‘Were you serious about the what you said about the lipstick and heels?’ And I said ‘Whatever makes you happy, this is fine.’ And she was like ‘Well I’ve got a list on Amazon, can I click buy?’ And I was like, ’Crack on its fine!’
And I thought maybe this was a bedroom kink at first; this is just a good bit of fun. It came very slowly into our lives, but it got more and more each time. Kate goes through a purge cycle where she’d get everything in a bag and put it in the attic for a bit. Eventually, she got to the point where she’d wanted to bury it, take a magic pill to make it all go away. She was wrestling with herself so much. Finally, she went to the doctors, who
were useless, so then she went to Glosscats who told her what was going on and then this developed over time. Losing your parents is one trigger event, and having a child is another trigger event. She lost her parents within 13 months of each other; I was 14 weeks pregnant when her dad was killed. That was a big trigger because you haven’t got the parents above to judge, and when they’re gone, you’re free. And when you have a baby you have elevated oestrogen, so she had
raised oestrogen and that triggered her realisation. She’s never hidden anything from me. I think if it’s hidden, that’s when the spouse has a problem. If someone doesn’t know themselves who they are, how can they tell you? If they’ve repressed this so far inside themselves and they don’t acknowledge it in their personal space, then they can’t say. I understood that, and I wasn’t bothered. We’re both bisexual, so the whole gender thing is negotiable anyhow. Looked at from the outside we were always a straight couple, but we’ve always been Bi. When we met, we were in our bisexual stage which isn’t your conventional straight relationship. To me, it wasn’t a big deal, but telling her family, and her family only really consisted of her brothers, was ‘fun.’ Her older brother is an ex-royal marine and has always pushed her into boxing, rugby, shooting guns and hunting, so he didn’t cope with it. They didn’t deal with their father’s death as they weren’t speaking over that either.
Her younger brother is a bit of a ManChild nevertheless and was living with their mother when she passed, so he’s never really had to grow up and cope with life. He’s been supportive enough, he loves her and will always be there, but he just doesn’t quite know how. My family have been great, my mum and dad have been excellent and always taught me unconditional love anyway. My younger brother is a Neanderthal male; He’s a rugby playing, beer drinking bloke and when I first introduced him to Kate, when she was a guy, he was like ‘yes, you’ve got me a guy I can drink with!’ Kate was quite manly when we first got together, so when I introduced Kate as a woman he was like, ‘Ugh, really?’ But he copes with it with humour and just takes the piss out of me, and he’s okay with it, but it’s been a bit hard for him to deal with it. He kind of rolls with it. My kids have been brilliant; obviously, the youngest hasn’t noticed, he still
calls her Dada because he was used to calling her that before the transition. Because Kate was the dad when he started talking at 9months, she continues to be the dad. It’s the only thing now that feels a bit weird, but we’ll mediate that when he’s older. My older son is excellent. We explained it to him, and he was like, ‘well as long as that makes you happy, I’m fine with it!’ It doesn’t impact them; they’re not bothered with the whole gender thing. There’s a lot more going on in their world than that. So they’re just like, are you the same person? Yeah, you are, only the packaging has changed. So they’re not bothered; It’s like someone’s got a haircut. People worry about thinking, ‘oh I can’t tell the kids!’ My sister in law is a bit funny about telling my nephew, and I was like just tell them, it’ll be okay. Explain to them that she was born in the wrong body and she’s now fixed it, so it’s fine. My nephews fine, he’s not bothered. My sister in law, she’s a little bit funny, but she’s funny about everything to be fair. She loves us, and she’s a lovely girl.
My concern was the bullying. I told my sons friends, and they were superb. The mums have a bit off with me, but they’ve been great with the kids. They’re very narrow-minded, they’ve only been in that one community. They’ve never actually been travelling, they haven’t been to university, they haven’t been educated. Without sounding too narcissistic, they haven’t seen the outside world. The only one gay mum is talked about behind her back, so I’m pretty sure I am talked about behind my back too. When we came out we told everyone face to face; we messaged everyone on Facebook that was close and then went on Facebook with a big post that was written well so everyone could see and that was that. I then proposed in February this year just gone, February 29th, I proposed on a beach.
Blessed be us. Star light, Star bright; bless all of my trans friends tonight. Blessed be us, who walk the walk, that one day we will be together to hug and to talk. May we stand in unity, while sharing ourselves with humanity? Let our smiles conquer our uncertainty and pain, and our sincerity and heart is our umbrella in the rain. Let’s show the world the kindness it lusts, and let the world know its blessed to be us.
Olivia
‘In the end, I’ve ended up making more friends since coming out.’
‘T
he first time, In my case, was In my early teen’s maybe at age 13 or 14. That’s when I realised I was trans. I told my two sisters, and I think my mum had an idea at the time but nobody else knew. I can’t quite recollect how I came out, all l can remember Is they used to let me try on their skirts and dresses. I also told them I felt different to other boys. I never really thought much of it until now, but on reflection, I guess they were very accepting at the time.
Things are much better now than they used to be years ago. I believe I came out at just the right time as people are more understanding and tolerant, I think that trans celebs have helped. I’ve only ever received a small amount of negativity. This was from my late wife and her brother. When I came out to them, they didn’t want anything to do with me. Alongside this, one or two so called ‘friends’ didn’t agree with it either but on the whole everyone has been so
kind and helpful. In the end, I’ve ended up making more friends since coming out which is a big plus. I told my wife even before we were married what I was like and she accepted it but she did not want to see it; out of respect for her, I only dressed when she was not around. She passed away, It was tough as we were together for a long time but I’m over the worse now and living the life I have wanted for so very long.
Don’t let your worries eat you up for the rest of your life. Remember, the next time there is a storm, leave both doors open. Don’t let your misfortunes find a home.