Going Beyond Identity Crisis

Over the past 25 years, the laws that govern how Irish people live their personal lives have come under increasing scrutiny. The first notable victory in what has been a hard-fought campaign for sexual and gender equality came in 1988, when David Norris went to the European courts to challenge Ireland’s legislation on homosexuality as discriminatory – and tasted victory. It wasn’t until 1993 that the ‘buggery’ laws criminalising male homosexuality were finally repealed, but that first victory was a ground-breaking one.

There have been other significant steps along the way, but the battle reached a new stage in 2011, with legal recognition for civil partnerships between members of the same sex in Ireland. There is still a long way to go, however, before equality is achieved. The scars of the 18th century penal laws remain – in flimsy employment protection for the LGBT community, in the abandonment of the rights of children in Civil Partnership legislation, in the failure to recognise gay marriage, and in the widespread lack of relationship and sexuality education (RSE) in schools.
While not as historic as David Norris’s seminal court victory, in 2010 Lydia Foy broke new ground when the High Court ruled that the laws preventing her birth cert being changed to reflect her gender were in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. That ruling has empowered a group of people who had until then been seen as deviants and malcontents here – as indeed is the case in many parts of the world.
The most famous transgender person on the planet right now is probably Chaz Bono, author and son of pop superstar Cher. Chaz was born in 1969, the year of the Stonewall Riots, a momentous event that was credited as the beginning of the Gay Civil Rights movement. Named Chastity Sun Bono, and physically a female, Chaz originally came out as lesbian – and wrote about it in a book The End Of Innocence: A Memoir, published in 2003. But that, it seems, was just a step on a longer journey to self-fulfillment.
In 2008, Chaz came out as transgender, and began the process of transitioning from out lesbian woman to transgender man. So what was his family’s reaction to the announcement that, in terms of identity, Chaz was a man?
“With Mom, it was never like, ‘Oh, I’m disowning you’,” Chaz tells me. “Once the physical changes started to happen, it was difficult for her, for a while. I understood. I was prepared to lose everything, and everybody. I hoped that wouldn’t happen, but I was prepared for it.”
Chaz participated in the US reality TV competition Dancing With The Stars last year. Predictably, as his back-story was revealed, he came under fire from the religious right. He is phlegmatic now about the experience.
“My job isn’t to change people’s minds as much as it is to open people’s minds,” he shrugs.
Meanwhile, the process of transformation continues. He has been living as a man for the last few years. The next stage will include acquiring a penis. How does that work? And will it be possible to have an erection?
“Testosterone makes the clitoris grow and function like a penis,” he explains. “Metoidioplasty then takes what you already have and makes it into one. I don’t really feel halfway to being a man. I feel 100% male.”
So what will sex be like for him after the surgery?
“I don’t know!”, he says, laughing, “You’ll have to ask me then!”
It is impossible to give an accurate estimate as to the number of transgender and transexual people in Ireland. While there are some who have had transformative operations and many are at different stages in the process, there are others who feel that they may have been born into the wrong body-type but have yet to acknowledge that in any concrete way. However, what’s encouraging is that an increasing number are willing to step forward and declare their position.
K. Bear Koss, the director of the Irish Museum of Contemporary Art (IMOCA), is an out trans woman. She played Electric Picnic in 2008 as the lead singer with Rodeopathic. But she is the first to acknowledge that she has occasional crises of confidence.
“All you can hope for some days is to keep your head down and hope you pass casual observation,” she explains. “Other days the mood is a bit more defiant and like, ‘This is me, what of it? You’ve got nothing to say that I haven’t heard before, so bring it on’. I have an incredibly supportive girlfriend, too, which makes it so much easier.
“My only other concern is getting back to music,” she adds. “Playing Electric Picnic was one of the highlights of my life!”
Jessica, age 20, is a student who contacted me when she heard that I was preparing an article on the subject of gender identity-change. At the moment she prefers to remain anonymous. She is planning to have surgery that will transform her from male body type to female, as soon as she can afford it. Interestingly, Jessica came out to her parents at the tender age of 11, when her gender dysphoria first crystallised for her.
“They believed I was going through a phase and would grow out of it,” she reflects. “I didn’t raise the issue again until last year, which was almost a decade later.”
While things have certainly improved for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Ireland, Jessica believes that there is still a long way to go.
“All hail the internet!” she says. “It is absolutely irreplaceable in helping you figure out who you are. There are loads of resources out there. But I would advise other young transgender people to go along to a support group like TENI and ask questions!”
Last year Enda Kenny refused to support same-sex marriage. What was Jessica’s reaction?
“I am not a fan of Enda Kenny. His silence on the issue is annoying because he is refusing to take a stand. He won’t move on it until he is forced to do so by overwhelming pressure from the public. We have certainly come a long way. But until everyone is equal, then nobody is. That has to change.”
Meanwhile, there are some whose gender identity is self-consciously in that ambiguous area between male and female. Ivanna BeFemme, for example, describes herself as a 35-year-old happily married tranny from Dublin.
“I have no desire to lose the dangly bits,” she laughs. “I’m a perfectly happy individual in that respect. My transition at present is to get out of the house and into public, as a tranny!”
Has that been a problem?
“My soon to be ex-wife had great difficulty with that,” Ivanna says. “She took to the sexual side of it like a duck to water. It wasn’t until my feminine side started to make appearances in our day-to-day life that it became a gripe. And so after four years of marriage and one young son, we started divorce procedures. I have a beautiful partner now, also female, who is fully supportive of me in every way.”
A tranny she may be, but there is some ambivalence in Ivanna’s mind. She fantasises about “a miracle surgery that would implant a button somewhere on my body, which would whisk away my man bits and replace them with nice lady bits.”
What does Ivana think of Obama’s recently declared support for same-sex marriages?
“Obama? From his four-year ‘ponderance’ as to whether or not he approves of same-sex marriage, to his absolute fucking U-turn on medicinal marijuana, he’s the biggest letdown since The Matrix sequels,” Ivanna says, not without humour. “That said, at least Dublin has become much more cosmopolitan in recent years. Not to mention throwing off the yoke of the Royal Palace of Kiddy Fiddlers.”
So what does Ivana make of the Church’s hostility to the LGBT community? “Everyone is entitled to their opinion,” she says. “But before they tar and feather me, could they at least make sure my legs are waxed?”
For the record, they’re nicer than mine!