Boy... What everyone thought I was from the minute I emerged 43 years ago (on Sunday). They thought I was a boy because of one thing... Well, three, but who's counting?
From that moment in 1976 my parents and everyone else assumed I was a boy, and content to be one. I was their first born and my parents were proud of their 'big lad'
I don't remember very much from those early days, but as folks who read my 'A' post know, by the age of 5/6 I certainly knew that this 'being a boy' business was not one I was very happy to be in. And the thing for the transphobes out there to consider is that pre-puberty, there's not a massive amount between boys and girls, other than societal conditioning, clothing and.... genitalia - which at that age has absolutely nothing to do with sexual activity. The thing that makes life hell for trans kids is puberty. I hated mine, the march of testosterone was like a poison coursing through my veins; I took no joy in the development of body hair (dad said it was drinking Dandelion and Burdock that put hairs on your chest - so I didn't) . I hated my voice breaking just at the time I was singing the Christmas solo in the church choir. I hated being labelled as 'queer' because I didn't know what it meant, other than it was not a friendly term. I genuinely didn't understand what 'faggot' meant - so much so, that assuming it a general term of abuse I repeated it to my father one Christmas during a game of monopoly - and found out very quickly indeed that it was a wholly unacceptable thing to say (that goes for you too MacGowan and the BBC)
Testosterone - poison for AMAB Trans Kids
Thinking about the dangers of testosterone to my body makes me really sad. On bad dysphoria days I reach for FaceApp - yeah yeah, I know that Vladimir Putin wants my face, but frankly on those days he can have it. Plumb in 11 year old me though, and faceapp can't tell the difference... Makes a good point that puberty blockers for trans kids are lifesavers, if I'd been able to get help then, I wouldn't be in the painful and costly place I am today, I wouldn't have had the decades of pain, sadness and physical destruction that then happened.
My senior school was pretty hellish - a concrete monstrosity under the flightpath to heathrow - our schoolday was signalled as ending as the Concorde left for New York each day rattling our knackered windows.
I made few friends, and none that lasted long. After the aborted attempt at coming out, I was looking for ways to be as much of a boy as possible. I took up wargaming and role playing (I now realise how common that is for trans kids - but back then it seemed very boy) .
I played rugby, and got pretty good at it, I joined the Air Cadets, much to my parents' surprise - and did well there too. I enjoyed the anonymity of being in uniform, the activities and that I finally seemed able to make friends.
Every week, I rode my bike to Heston and paraded with the other cadets, enjoying shooting, gliding, flying and even drill and being in the band.
I think at this stage I believed that I had it cracked - I could survive as a boy - and do OK at it - I was lining up for a career in the armed forces, that would seal the deal and I loved being on exercise, being in the field and crawling about in the mud. I wasn't really happy and everyone knew it - but it was put down to teenage angst. Given I was off for a glittering military career, and was terrified of my parents, I never really went to town on sex, drugs or rock'n'roll - and by never really went to town I mean, I never took any drugs - not even to 'not inhale'.
After a couple of years, I managed to get a set of Sergeant's stripes on my shoulders and as I was by now (cheers Testosterone) taller than most of the staff, ended up being the drum major for the band, I got a set of keys for the huts enabling me to go there when parades were not on to do paperwork (which I thought was great) and prepare for competitions etc.
So I used to nip up on Sundays to do these things, and yes, I realised that Op. Be a Boy was hitting trouble... After a couple of weeks where I realised that I wouldn't be disturbed I took a walk round to uniform stores and drew out an RAF skirt to wear around the place. The RAF female uniform is not exactly sexy, and that's exactly the point. I wasn't doing it to feel sexy - just to feel normal for a while. I was a cadet, and so despite the ban on LGBT service people, still in place at that time, the worst that would have happened would have been a bollocking, a conversation with my parents and being kicked out, I still risked it for a few blissful hours of paperwork and feeling normal.
Rachel Trimble, a Trans Woman in the Royal Air Force, sporting that uniform
I guess, and it's by no means certain that this was a point of realisation for me. This wasn't a kink - I wasn't turned on by being dressed as a girl, just felt at home, normal, comfortable and also frightened and resentful of what hand I'd been dealt. After the first attempt at coming out, I still knew it was akin to a death sentence - and the end of any ideas I had for a real military career.
Me in 1994 leading the D-Day 50th Anniversary parade from Eisenhower's HQ
So it became a private thing, that I was always seeking a cure for. Trying to be more and more masculine to 'make it go away' - the harm done by this was incalculable - I was doing things I didn't really want to, just to be 'normal' - and for who? - Definitely not for myself. It was then that I also started the ongoing philosophy class in my head... 'Being a woman 101' - I started to consider what made a woman. Was a woman reduced to genitalia? - I couldn't accept this - there had to be more to it than that. my body had developed completely wrongly, but I felt no less female for it. I looked at those women and girls around me and concluded that having breasts and a vagina were not the centre of their existence, they just had them and I didn't. That conversation carries on to this day - complicated by the deep set desire for me to regularise my body and make good on the mistake made by nature. I haven't got all the answers to that yet, but I have come to the conclusion that there is indeed a cure for being trans, it's to transition.
So - now you know about my uniformed teenage adventures, and the pain that still didn't go away. The beginning of a long period of repression and denial.
Next chapter will cover off real military time, in the dark days before LGBT folks were decriminalised and attempting the penultimate cure to my issue.