Alpha, you know, the beginning... Seems like a good place to start.
While you're reading, a good tune is 'Big in Japan' by Alphaville because - theme and well, I AM big in Japan, I know because I once went there.
The Past is Prologue
How did it all begin for me? It's simultaneously easy and hard to recall really. And it's only now, with the help of some counselling that I'm unpacking a lot of memories I had tied up with string and sealing wax, thinking never to revisit them again.
When I was 5, I got pinged as 'gifted' - somehow it was thought that I had some mental capacity that exceeded my years; I'd been going to a Church of England primary school which was all flannel shorts and school caps, I didn't like it much but it was OK - some years later the old school building was the scene of the Daily Mirror taking pictures of Princess Diana in the gym which had taken over the buildings. I had a few friends there, but remember much more clearly how much I liked wearing the dresses and bangles from the school dressing up box. My best friend was a girl called Catherine, and I loved to play with her, but the boys, not so much. I remember going to birthday parties and hating it - boys who had introduced me to a game called 'duff him in' - which, you've guessed it, involved duffing me in by the railing which separated us from the catholic school next door. I remember a party where there was a magician, and not believing the birds he had produced were real, I blew gently on their feathers to see if they moved - which resulted in my parents being called after the furious 'children's entertainer' screamed at me for 'blowing on his birds'.
What's the relevance? - I can only say that I knew I was 'different' but didn't know why. I knew I didn't want to play 'duff him in' or with the other boys at all for that matter. I knew that I liked what the girls wore a whole load more than what I had to wear and I knew that I couldn't explain it - not just because I didn't know what to explain, but because it would worry my mum and dad.
I moved schools after that, to a school which was decidedly less 'grey flannel shorts' - in doing so I missed out a year (thanks to being 'gifted') - which meant I missed making friends, the first year of maths, which hobbled me for years until I got a job in a bar, and got introduced to the experience of being bullied for 'talking posh', for being 'queer' (had to look that up) and for a myriad of other reasons which I couldn't fathom and now can't remember. The school was certainly an 80s London school - one time our deputy head launched his way up the fire escape to apprehend the kids sniffing glue up there - all very 'Grange Hill'
In short, it wasn't much fun for a girl in a boy's body but with no way to work it all out. About a month into the term I got taken aside by a couple of the bully boys - it was assembly time and they took me into a classroom and announced that I was going to be anointed as 'wally of the week' - this involved wearing a party dress from the costume box with a balloon for boobs. They were putting me into this outfit when a teacher interrupted and angrily stopped the proceedings. I remember the shame of being bullied, the shame that I liked the dress and the complete lack of understanding from the school that something was very badly wrong. Within a couple of years, I was sitting on my own at the windowsill of the classroom, as I didn't want to open myself to spending time with children I had no connection to, the local authority also assigned me a special teacher to help with why I was so sad all the time (it was associated with being 'gifted' again) - all it did was mark me out as being something 'other' and made the bullying and isolation worse.
It's about this time that I developed an obsession with Madonna. Not a boy obsession, but a dream that i was Madonna, I so wanted to be her, watching the recordings from Top of the Pops that we had for the last day of term I ached to be able to dance with the other girls, and to grow up beautiful - just like what i saw in the videos. I tried to join in with the girls in the playground but hey angrily shrugged me off as an annoying boy. Looking back it was then that the taunts of 'queer' started up, the crazy logic of children that a 'boy' wanting to dance with girls was something other than straight... Well, I suppose they were right.
During this period I also started wearing mum's clothes while she was out at work, even tried a bit of makeup before panicking that I'd be caught by my gran or brother and hastily stuffing them back and rubbing my face raw with a flannel. One Christmas for a 'joke' I wore one of mum's bras to be my brother's 'glamourous assistant' at an after lunch magic show, Everyone thought it was hilarious (except mum who was mortified at her bra being part of the show) - but I just knew it was what I wanted to wear. I especially remember a fabulous knitted dress she had that I loved. I felt sure that mum knew that I'd been wearing it because of my careless ways of putting it back - perhaps she did, she says she does remember it, but assumed it was a phase. She also remembers me applying her fake tan - which through not washing my hands left me looking like I was suffering from vitiligo.
Aged 10 I moved up to 'big school' - a year earlier than my peers, and to a school with not many folks from my old one there. I hated it; I hated every minute of the five years I was there, I was lazy (aka not 'meeting my potential') was bullied some more, including having my teeth pushed through my lip one November by being Karate chopped to the face and what few friends I made soon got tired of me and made clear they wanted nothing to do with me. My parents knew I was sad, and they were worried.
One evening in 1987 I consulted the family medical encyclopaedia and announced to my parents that i was 'depressed' - I read the symptoms and they matched how I felt - my folsk were worried (of course) and mum decided that I needed some help. They knew (mum told me recently) that I was very unhappy but not why; and mum decided to take me to a psychiatrist she'd seen herself back in the late 60s.
We went to the doctor in Hammersmith - I remember with absolute clarity the building, the brass plate outside, the wallpaper and victorian fireplace in his consulting room, which had a genuine victorian, Freud style couch which I sat awkwardly on as the Doctor; Watkins was his name, and surely now long dead, asked me what was wrong.
I paused and felt tears in my eyes again before blurting out 'I'm a girl' quickly following it up with a ramble about not liking being a boy and that nobody wanted to spend any time with me. His facial expression (which I've seen a few times since) was one of shock, disgust, disapproval and then resolve.
He told me to 'stop it' - he then told me that i was 'too big for that nonsense' (I was 5'11" at the age of 10) and made very clear that I'd just made a very big mistake in telling him about myself. He invited me to tell me what was really wrong - and taking the cue I talked about bullying, feeling isolated and not being able to maintain friendships. I can't remember his advice, but I certainly panicked that he'd tell my mum what I said and never wanted to go back. I told myself that I would stop thinking this way and try and be a boy, try and make my parents proud of me and not tell anyone about this part of me again.
So passed the first of three comings out in my life - and one taken at a time when I had no positive trans role models to look to to make sense of my brain. I wasn't like Les Dawson, or Monty Python, or the people in the newspapers I delivered who were always treated as freaks - usually with the prefix 'sex change' before their names. I knew from this encounter that being different was wrong and would have profound consequences for me and my family. Looking back at the damage that my male puberty did to me I sometimes cry and feel broken inside for not being able to do something about it. My mum sometimes voices that she wishes I'd told her back then; but I know full well that she'd have sought out ways to have me 'fixed' (i.e. conversion therapy) - for which I think I'm glad I avoided.
1988 was not a good year, and they wouldn't get a lot better.
Next time... Teenage years, RAF uniform skirts and trying to be a boy