Note: The narrative below is the result of a suggestion from a good friend. She has
requested that I write a book in which I described how I felt, what I thought, when
things happened, and so forth. She is interested in understanding what my life
experiences were and are.
As a result, I have tried to write the narrative, not as I would recall it from the
present, but as I had experienced it in the past.
When did I first become aware that I was different? When did I first become aware that I was a transsexual? How did this condition affect my development? Some questions can be answered, but others remain a mystery.
A bit of my early history, that was revealed to me by my mother while I was a young "man", involved my behaviour and play preferences during my pre-school days. I do not personally recall the time, but must rely on what my mother had told me. In those early days, I showed a marked predisposition to girlhood. What do I mean by this? Simply, my behaviour was more feminine than masculine, I had no interest in boys’ activities and I would enter readily into girls’ activities. This included playing house, playing with dolls, and playing with other girls as one of them, behaving like them. My play preferences did not include "cops and robbers", "cowboys and Indians", "war", climbing trees, or any of the other activities that are clearly boys’ activities. In the early years, I did not associate with boys either.
Did my parents not sense that their son was not normal? Was the gender identity problem not apparent? Keep in mind that the time was the mid-1950s, a time when very few people knew anything about a condition that rarely presents itself. If anyone knew anything about transsexuals, they only knew about Christine Jorgensen, the ex-Marine who became a woman, and they only knew about her because the press had had a field-day with the issue, back in 1952. The public did not understand the nature of the condition. Also, there were few medical and psychological professionals in practice who knew sufficiently about the condition. So, my parents had dismissed my unusual behavior and play preferences as a "phase that he was going through".
To answer the question about when I was first aware of being different, I must first search my memories to determine how far back that I can remember. My earliest memories, like most people’s, are few and disjointed. Two memories survive from my pre-school era.
The first incident occurred when I was about two - three years old, in 1956 or 1957. It was my hospital stay for a tonsillectomy. Did I feel that I was different in this particular incident? No. Did I feel that I was girl? No. The concept of sexuality is not present with this memory.
The second incident occurred about the same time. It involved a visit to a dental surgeon, to have a bad tooth extracted. I clearly remember walking up to a home that had a brick surface with red, brown and black bricks randomly mixed, a large weeping willow in the front yard and picture-frame style windows. I remember sitting in the big, leather, special chair. I remember the mask with the funny smelling gas and the fear of not knowing what was happening. However, there is again no concept of sexuality in this memory. I just was a youngster, undergoing another weird, traumatic experience.
What is my earliest remembrance of being different? The earliest such remembrance was in my seventh year and this memory is the first recallable memory since the above two incidents. I was attending Grade 2 at Pemlo Park Public School, in Weston, Ontario. The memories of this period are sketchy. However, I do remember that something was wrong. That that something wrong involved my not having a girl’s body. I knew that I was not a boy, even though I occupied a normal boy’s body. Somehow, I knew for certain that I was indeed a girl.
How did I know that I was a girl? Why was this knowledge so certain, even though the physical evidence clearly showed that I was a normal boy? Can one be a normal boy who knew that he was a girl? No, this cannot be normal. Somehow, I knew that I was girl, despite the physical evidence. My behavior was a better match to that of a girl, than that of a boy. I was soft-spoken, gentle-mannered, obedient, people-oriented and still preferred girl’s activities. I wanted to skip rope with the other girls, to play hopscotch with them, to wear pretty clothes, and so forth. How about rough-and-tumble play? Not interested. How about sports? Not interested. In fact, I just did not care for anything that was part of a boy’s life. I was a girl and I wanted a girl’s life. It was not that I believed that I was girl, but that I knew that I was a girl.
So, if I was certain that I was a girl, why did I keep it a secret? What could be wrong in asserting who I was? Why could I not tell anyone that I was a girl?
I was my parent’s pride and joy, their first born, their son. How could I be anything other than their boy? How would they feel if they knew that their son was actually a daughter in a boy’s body?
One did not risk telling anyone that she was a girl in a boy’s body. That was crazy! That was silly! Of course, they would not believe me. Everyone would think that I was sick in the head. I would be a daily victim of the bullies, the mean-spirited boys. The other girls would never accept me into their cliques since I had a boy’s body. They would not believe me if I told them that I was really a girl. Oh, why could I not be a normal girl, complete with a girl’s body?
I knew of no one else who was the same as me. So, I was the world’s only girl trapped in a boy’s body. My parent’s would probably be very angry if I was to tell them that I was a girl. I would be picked on at school. I would not be liked. I wanted so much to be the real me, but no one would accept me as who I was.
Life was unfulfilling. At school, I could not take part in the girl’s activities, I could not be my true self, I had to lie about being a boy. I had to pretend that I was a boy. At home, the same problems. I felt many bad emotions about my life.
This all led to the crippling shame and deeply-felt guilt of being different, of not fitting in. This shame and guilt would deny me any meaningful life for the next four decades. Why should I feel shame for being who I am? So what if I was the only one in the world who was a girl with a boy’s body. Ah, that’s the reason! I was unique and only I could understand what it was like to be a girl trapped in a boy’s body. That must be why I cannot tell anyone!
From these earliest memories in 1961, through my school years, a deep loneliness developed. Why have friends, if you cannot be yourself? Why play with others, when you had to pretend to be something you hated to be? As with any child who finds the world too painful to take, I withdrew into a make-belief world. In the other world, I was Cathy, I was a girl, I had a girl’s body, everyone accepted me as a girl, and I was happy. Leaving the other world, to return to the real world, was painful, for I had to return to being something that I was not and that I did not want to pretend to be. This was the start of my loneliness, my independence, and my peculiarity. In the real world, I had to pretend to be someone that I was not. Who would want to live this way?
In 1965 and 1966, I had a basement bedroom in my parents house. My brother, two years younger than me, would spend practically all of his playtime with the other boys of the neighborhood and would rarely come downstairs. My sister, six years my younger, would rarely come downstairs unless one of our parents was with her. My parents did not come downstairs too often. Also, I would be left in the house alone during the day quite a bit. As a consequent, I had the basement basically to myself.
Mom kept some old clothes in a closet downstairs. I would, when opportunity permitted, put some of Mom’s old clothes on before I re-entered my other world. This brought some relief, just to be able to wear woman’s clothes. As luck would play out, there were many opportunities to get dressed up and to enter my happy world, the world where I was Cathy and the world where I was a normal girl.
In 1966, Dr. Harry Benjamin, a New York hormone specialist, published the first authoritative book, The Transsexual Phenomenon, on the condition. I purchased a copy of the book and, secretly, within my bedroom, I read and re-read the book several times, cover to cover. I now knew what I was, who I was and I learned that I was not the only one who had this condition.
However, the damage had been done. The shame and guilt had dug deep, planting roots that would take three decades to kill. What was I and who was I, at the end of 1966? How can one describe that reclusive, peculiar boy?
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Last Updated: 22 March 2009 (site moved to new server)