JACK AND ALEX ARE life partners who
just happen to be both men who were identified
female at birth. They are members of our network
and have graciously allowed us a little glimpse
into their lives and life together.
Torque: Jack and
Alex, can you start by letting us know where you
both hail from and roughly how old are you
now?
Jack: I grew up in Northern NSW, moved to
Brisbane in my late teens for a number of years
then moved to Perth for while. Eventually I
returned to my hometown where I spent a further
eighteen years before moving to Sydney, then
Newcastle and am currently living in Melbourne.
Currently I'm aged forty-eight.
Alex: I'm originally from Los Angeles,
California. I've also lived in England and San
Francisco at various times in my life. Since I
moved here to be with Jack in May of 2002, we've
lived in Sydney, Newcastle and now we're in
Melbourne. I'll be fifty-three in February
(2007).
Torque: So Jack, So
- how old were you when you first realised you
were a boy?
Jack: Probably around the time I realised
there were differences between boys and girls.
It was a little confusing and I kept wondering
when I was going to "grow" my "willy". I think
it hit home at around age four that this wasn't
going to happen when I saw a baby boy getting
his nappy changed and realised that he already
had one.
I know this sounds really naive but I was
just a little kid and who knows what I was
thinking? By the time I went to school I had
pretty much accepted the fact that I was a
"girl" but it didn't feel right. I didn't mind
primary school, it was a tiny little school and
girls and boys just mixed and I could just go
along with the program that I was one of the
"boys". High school was a whole different matter
as we were completely segregated.
Torque: What about
you Alex - when did you first realise you were a
boy?
Alex: I always knew I was a boy. It was
realising that my body wasn't conforming, that
caused me frustration. I was around three or
four. Fighting with that incongruity was very
rugged.
Torque: Did either
of you ever try to convince others that you were
male not female?
Alex: Oh yeah. The response was less than
enthusiastic. It felt downright dangerous. My
strategy to deal with it was to become very
secretive. That overflowed into everything
really. It was just easier not to let people
know how I felt unless it was about something I
knew they would find acceptable. I was quite a
sad little kid.
Jack: I grew up in an extremely religious
family. I remember a couple of times trying to
broach the subject but I was shushed very
smartly, so I learnt to hold my tongue. I
figured that this was a very taboo subject and
what I was feeling must be "sinful".
Torque: Guys, what
was puberty like for you?
Alex: Miserable. But isn't that true for
everybody? I hit puberty in 1967. I guess for me
the worst part was the arrested development. How
are you supposed to know what you want to be if
you aren't even allowed to be who you are? As a
result, I was all over the shop. The up side is
that at least it was the time for rebellion!
Jack: Yeah. Puberty was certainly confusing.
The boys I used to play with didn't seem to want
to play any more or had different thoughts about
what games to play. I became really resentful
and figured if I couldn't join them, I'd beat
them at their own game. By the time I'd reached
fourteen I was looking extremely girly and found
this was certainly getting their attention.
Torque: So you
didn't think that you might be
lesbian?
Jack: I never thought I was a lesbian as I'd
never had any interest in girls. I really didn't
have many "girlfriends" either as I didn't seem
to have anything in common with them. Most of my
friends were boys, unless the friendship had
gone further and was an actual boyfriend. It's
funny really because it didn't even really enter
my head that I was gay until I actually
transitioned. Once I had transitioned then
things did change. Although I prefer to have a
male partner, I must admit to now finding some
women very sexy and attractive. Even stranger, I
find it easier to make friends with women rather
than men. I still can't figure that out because
I'm still the same person, I just look
different.
Alex: I did think I might be lesbian, to a
degree. I preferred androgynous partners and I
was turned off by how boys and men related to me
in bed, so I felt better having sex with girls,
although I wasn't particularly attracted to the
female body. The best I could come up with was
that I was a gay male trapped in a lesbian's
body. Yeah, I know, very twisted.
Torque: Jack, when
did your life begin to turn
around?
Jack: I had gone through periods of my life
feeling and also attempting suicide. When I got
married at twenty-four and had the two children,
my husband became ill for a few years. I was
extremely busy looking after home, family,
working and also looking after an invalid
husband. Even when he recovered, I was still
very busy with family and working and I guess
this basically took my mind off my problems for
quite a while. By the time I was forty - my
children weren't so needy and my work was not so
consuming, all the old feelings returned. By the
time I was forty-two, I was definitely feeling
suicidal again and decided to get into
counselling. I had to figure out what was really
wrong with me and then fix it. As it turned out
the only way to "fix" the problem was to 'fix"
the body.
Torque: You were
forty-two and married with children when you
started transition!?
Jack: Yep, I was forty-two years old when
crunch time came and decided I had to do
something. At the time I was married, had two
children, a daughter aged 15 and my son aged 13.
At that time I was in touch with another FTM in
USA who was very supportive and helped me a lot
with information. This FTM is now my partner,
Alex, who is living in Australia with me.
Torque: What about
you Alex? Where were you when you life began to
turn around?
Alex: When I was twenty-one I made my first
attempt to transition. Unfortunately, the shrink
I went to was using gender reassignment to
"cure" homosexuality. This was in 1975. He ran a
bunch of psych tests on me and decided I was not
a good candidate for his program. It was the
only program I knew about then, and as a result
it was also the closest I came to committing
suicide. After that, I got out the nails and
hammered them into the box and didn't dare
broach the thought again until I was
forty-four.
That was a little odd when I finally did. I
was talking to a friend who was going on about
how wonderful 'femaleness' was and how I should
be embracing that. He said, that's what he would
if he were a woman! There was a roaring in my
ears and I felt the pressure inside me like lava
building up so, I blurted out, "That would be
fine if I were actually a woman!" It wasn't
dramatic or anything. I was just so tired of
stuffing myself down.
I got into counselling within a week and
transitioned just after my forty-fifth
birthday.
At the time, I was my mother's carer and not
in a relationship. Though I was fairly content
with work and my social life, I as just marking
time. I'm not sure if I felt like I was waiting
to die or was in suspended animation.
Torque: So how did
your family take this news Alex?
Alex: That was a little hairy. My mother has
Alzheimer's. Initially, when I first told her,
she seemed fine with it but it wasn't long
before she fell into a deep depression. She
realised how much things would change. Now, I'm
not sure if she is just ignoring things or if
her disease has erased the knowledge. I've
decided that that doesn't matter. She can call
me whatever she likes. I don't feel any need to
push it.
My older brother had a very hard time with
the idea that he had a brother rather than a
little sister. He threw a fit, to be blunt.
Then, as is his way, he gradually came to accept
the situation. We're not as close as we once
were. I hope at some point we'll get back to
that.
Torque: How about
you Jack? What reaction did you have from your
husband and family?
Jack: My husband was at first amused and
didn't think I could possibly be serious. When
he realised I was serious, his amusement turned
very ugly and to be honest I felt very much in
danger. My daughter was very supportive and
would not be separated from me. I think at the
time my son just felt confusion and this was an
extremely difficult time for him. My parents and
siblings were also very confused but it was
eventually my mother who put her foot down and
informed the rest of the family that they had to
accept me as I am. So a few years down the track
my family, although still refusing to use the
correct pronoun, which in all honesty just makes
them look silly, have accepted me for who I
am.
Torque: It's good
your families seem to have come to some kind of
acknowledgement of your journeys. Tell me, how
did the pair of you meet? How does a partnership
start on opposite sides of the
globe!?
Alex: Jack emailed me from a profile I had
online. We actually had many phone conversations
before he came to meet me. It got very
expensive!
Jack: Yes! After a lot of emailing and when I
had finally left my hometown to move to Sydney,
I braved the flight to California to meet
Alex.
It was kind of strange sitting on that flight
and at times I wondered what the heck I was
doing!? But as soon as we met, it all clicked
into place and the subsequent separations were
awful. We flew backwards and forwards over the
Pacific Ocean a few times to be with each other
for a couple of weeks at a time for about 12
months when finally Alex made to decision to
come to Australia to live.
Luckily we had a really good immigration
lawyer who made this all happen for us.
Torque: That's
fantastic! Alex, I understand you've had some
health scares since you've been in Melbourne.
Can you share some of that with
us?
Alex: Sure, in March of 2003, I had a heart
attack. It turned me upside down and inside out.
This last May, I had a bad bout of angina and
had to have more stents put in my arteries.
After the heart attack, I did everything the
doctors told me to (including quitting smoking)
but my genetics are what they are.
Testosterone is a big risk factor, along with
family history. If I stopped taking
testosterone, odds are I wouldn't have any
further problems until I was much older. The
idea for me at the moment is to reduce the risk
as much as I can without losing myself in the
process. I've been trying to achieve a balancing
act.
I tried the gel for awhile but my levels fell
way too much. I might experiment with the
patches. Right now I'm injecting 100mL every 11
days. That's what I've been doing since the
heart attack.
I'm not interested in cutting my balls off!
but I'm not in a rush to die either. So, that's
where I am right now.
Torque: Jack, how
did you feel about this development and Alex's
health?
Jack: Alex's heart attack was extremely scary
and made me very aware of what I was doing to my
own body. Now, I'm very careful about the need
for regular check ups to ensure everything is
going well.
Alex's health problems still worry me a lot.
It would be an extremely lonely world for me
without him.
Torque: How do you
relate to your bodies now (compared to before)?
Are there changes you still look for? Or hope to
see?
Alex: I'd be happier to be in better shape
and have more hair on my head than on my bum. I
am much more comfortable in my skin,
all-in-all.
Jack: I'm extremely comfortable with my body
except I really should work out and tone up some
flabby bits. My chest surgery went a little awry
but if I did some weight training this could
probably improve. I work pretty long hours and
by the time I get home the last thing I feel
like doing is exercise. I'm still hoping for
better lower surgery than is being offered at
present.
Torque: Do you think
you'll have more surgery Jack? Where do you
place yourself now with transition? Is it over?
or you still in transition?
Jack: I pretty much consider my transition is
over. The only surgery I haven't had is lower
surgery but I have thought this over very
carefully. I'll not consider having a
phalloplasty but have toyed with the idea of a
metoidioplasty.
In the end I've decided to wait to see if
there are any future developments which could be
a better option but given my age I'm not pinning
my hopes on this.
Torque: What about
you Alex?
Alex: Hmmm, I guess my balding head and belly
girth would be more age transition than gender
transition! I don't feel any great need to do
more to myself physically.
Torque: So to wrap
up - what are some of the 'low-lights' and
'high-lights' of transition for both of
you?
Alex: One of the disappointing things for me
was finding that not all my friends were as
accepting as others. Most of them were though.
Other than that, the assumption that gender
change equals 'being MTF' and that not all my
problems are gender-related.
Jack: One of the biggest "low-lights", which
will be something that I'll feel guilt over for
many many years, is the hurt my son went
through. My daughter came with me to Sydney but
I left my son with my husband. At the time I
thought it would be better for him but in
hindsight I wish I had taken him with me too
now.
The highlights for me were definitely the
bodily changes. Looking into the mirror and
actually seeing me, not somebody that the family
wanted me to be.
Alex: Yeah, one of the first things that
others noticed was my voice changing. Every time
my voice would crack, I'd laugh hysterically. I
wasn't in the least bit embarrassed! Finding
myself perceived as I perceive myself and seeing
that finally reflected back in the mirror was
something I still haven't got over.
Jack: I hope I don't offend anyone with this
but having lived on both sides of the fence I
have come to realise that there is such a thing
as "male privilege". People, particularly at
work, certainly take me more seriously. I'm no
longer a face with a body - I'm actually a
person who has mental capabilities!
Alex: Falling in love was the most surprising
event of the past seven-and-a-half years. It
hadn't been on the agenda at all. I figured I
was going to have sex but I didn't expect a
relationship! That someone as handsome,
intelligent and decent as Jack would love me was
absolutely stunning. I still don't quite
understand how that happened, I'm just
overwhelmingly grateful that it did!
Torque: Alex and
Jack, thanks for sharing a little of your lives
and experience with us. I'm sure you've given
some hope to someone reading this and we hope
you have many more years of friendship and love
yet.
