And the voice said....
There’s quite a long back story to this one.
I started it two weeks ago; telling the story of how I heard a voice twice in my head.
And how this experience, which is meant to be a sign of serious mental illness, actually happened at moments of the greatest sanity.
The first time, in 1978, the Voice guided me to find myself as a writer.
The second time, in 2004, the Voice guided me to complete the process of transition. To finally abandon my identity as a man, and live openly as a woman.
This story begins in 2009. I’m on my way to see the surgeon about gender affirmative surgery.
I’m looking forward to an informed conversation.
I’d assumed I needed it, needed to undergo the process of complete removal of my male genitalia and the creation of a vagina.
And all that that entailed.
I had been unable to have this surgery when I first sought it because of complications following heart surgery.
And now, 5 years down the line, I’d found myself repelled and disgusted by the reality of it.
I was shocked by my negative response to something that had once seemed so essential and desirable.
Surgery is essentially an act of appalling intimate violence, I’d discovered when a surgeon had ripped open my chest to get at my heart.
But that operation then had saved my life; and I knew that Gender Affirming Surgery, too, had saved many lives.
So I didn’t altogether trust my response; and wanted to discuss the risks of complications following cardiac surgery and the alternatives he offered.
So I came to him full of questions I was looking forward to discussing in private.
Only when I got in, the room was full of people.
There was him, and an assistant, and the nurse practitioner in charge of post-operative care and did I mind if a couple of medical students sat in on the consultation?
And the truth was that I did, but there didn’t seem to be room to say so, somehow, and I found myself siting down and him saying:
“The psychiatrist tells me you need a nasty operation”
In the condescending tone of voice you use to children or people who can’t really be trusted to think for themselves and need to be jollied along,
And he pushed across a form he’d already filled out in my name and said,
“Sign here”
And I said, “No”
And he said, a bit put out,
“Oh you want the cosmetic operation then”
And did a bit of crossing out and circling that option,
‘The cosmetic operation’ being a procedure where they completely remove your testicles and shave your penis down so it looks from the outside as though you have female genitalia,
And I said , No”, louder,
And then, louder still,
“I want an orchidectomy”
Not really consciously knowing that I wanted to be castrated or what I would end up looking like or without any of the information I rationally needed to make a properly informed decision,
But just furious, utterly furious at this man daring to make decisions on my behalf
And he was furious too, angrily crossing out everything that had been written before and scrawling in
Castration
In medical language, and then: sign here,
and I did.
“Get out this clinic”, he said. “Go into the main hospital entrance, turn right and it’s the third door on the left. Appointments. Hand this in there”.
And as I left, he shouted after me “You’ll be back!”
And there was me in the corridor, clutching the form, heart beating madly, somehow following his instructions,
Giving the form to a lovely lady behind a counter,
And then out, out into the sunshine,
Weak in the knees,
Wondering what I had done.
Wondering what to do next…
What was very clear to me was that I didn’t want that man anywhere near my genitals…
But as I looked into it, I saw there was no alternative.
And the letter came, and I saw I would hardly have to wait at all, and it all fitted in to a very complicated year…
And somehow I knew it would be alright.
And it was.
I was terrified when I turned up early one morning a few weeks later; but everyone was kind, and I was shown to a room overlooking the river.
The surgeon had cycled to work and turned up in his lycra, looking a bit grotesque but also oddly endearing, and he was positively genial…
The operation was very quick and there was very little pain afterwards.
It all just felt a bit weird., that was all…
They kept me in overnight, as a precaution. I was staying with a kind friend, who let me use his flat while he was away, and I was conscious of an unexpected feeling of peace.
The war inside me had finally come to an end.
There still didn’t seem to be a word that described me - androgyne, maybe? - but whoever I was I was fine with it.
Actually there is a word.
An ancient word. A word that carries such a massive weight of horror and shame that I’m reluctant to use it.
The word is: eunuch.
I am a eunuch.
There is a lot to be said about eunuchs; but the most important place to begin is with the knowledge that everything we have been told about them is wrong.
It’s absolutely not true, for instance, that being a eunuch destroys the capacity for sexual pleasure. In fact it adds new dimensions to it… and softens it in the most delicious way.
I must write about it all properly one day…
Meantime within a week I was in the most beautiful residency in France…
And a few days after that I was cycling through the forest past a lovely wee cottage where an old woman was taking care of her garden.
She smiled at me as I went past, and said
“Bonjour, madame”.
And when I got back home to Scotland, no-one shouted at me in the street any more.
No-one has ever shouted at me in the street again…
Soon afterwards I began rehearsals for the first performances of “The Gospel According To Jesus Queen Of Heaven”.
All this happened in 2009, when I had been blocked as a performer for 45 years.
Queen Jesus broke that down… through her I re-discovered my joy in performing.
And finally embodied my vocation as a performer.
Photo Credit: Neil Montgomery.
The photo is of a much younger me performing “The Gospel According To Jesus Queen Of Heaven” for the first time, in the Tron Theatre, Glasgow, in November 2009.