Like
most twins, Martine and Karen Hewitt were
very close. Born in 1967, they grew up in
Reading, a town just outside London, had their
own pony, shared a passion for athletics and
even talked of having a double wedding. They
were inseparable. But three years ago, Martine
decided she was not a woman but a man trapped
inside a woman's body. Now called Paul, she/he
has all but completed a sex change and is coming
to terms with living life as a man. Karen,
meanwhile, has to learn to live with the fact
she has lost a sister…and gained a brother.
It has taken two years for Martine to be
transformed - through drugs and surgery - into
Paul. Her voice broke, she began to grow a beard
and last year she underwent a double mastectomy.
Karen witnessed all this, offering constant
support, never expressing misgivings. Before
treatment, Paul was sent to a series of
counsellors and psychiatrists to help him
prepare for his new life. Now a technical
author, he has just told his story in a book,
A Self-Made Man. But Karen and Paul's
girlfriend Laura have never spoken publicly
about their feelings - until now.
Karen's Story
"At times, I've felt close to a nervous
breakdown," Karen says. "I started seeing a
counsellor, too. It's painful for me to look
back through family albums. When I see pictures
of us as girls, I have this really strange
feeling of not being able to relate to them. At
times, I did have feelings of horror during
Paul's transformation. He would do things like
run out of the bathroom saying, 'Look, I've got
another hair on my chin.' It was a kind of
mutation in a way."
It
is ironic that, as her sister finally achieves
happiness as a man, Karen is left feeling
overwhelmed. For, as they grew up, it was always
her sister who was unhappy. "People couldn't
tell us apart," says Karen. "Then they'd say,
'Karen's the smiley one.'"
Martine was the tomboy while Karen was very
feminine. "We started ballet when we were six
and I adored it," says Karen. "But Martine asked
to do judo instead. Until we were 13, there were
constant fights between Martine and our parents.
In the end, Mum and Dad just accepted she wanted
different things to me. I knew something was
wrong but I didn't know what. I was happy being
a woman and Martine wasn't."
As they began dating boys, rivalry entered
their relationship. "Martine would say, 'I'll
never be a good-looking as you.' She would dress
in raunchy clothes, and even took up modelling
for a while. Once, someone in the audience
shouted, 'Look, it's a man in drag!' She was
very pretty but something in her body language
didn't ring true.
"When we were about 18, there were constant
comments about a double wedding and we used to
chat about it ourselves - we always wanted to do
everything together. But it was an odd thing to
visualise because the previous year we were
asked to be bridesmaids and Martine refused,
saying, 'There's no way I'm wearing that stupid
dress.'"
But, for a long time, Martine was the one who
seemed to form stronger relationships with men
than her sister. "She had one five-year
relationship," Karen says, "though, looking
back, it may have been more of a brother-sister
thing. I don't think Martine ever had sex with a
man. From the hints I got at the time, there
always seemed to be a barrier."
Both girls went to university, but while
Karen enjoyed herself, Martine was wretched.
Things came to a head when the sisters set off
travelling around the world at the age of 23.
After three months, Martine returned home,
leaving Karen to continue alone. Karen was still
in Australia when Martine sent her a letter:
"She said she had found a word for what she was
- transsexual. I can barely remember reacting, I
sort of blocked everything out." But when she
returned to England for Christmas in 1992, Karen
had to face up to the situation. "Martine was
still calling herself Martine but, when she took
me to the pub, she was wearing a suit. It could
be a bit embarrassing." Martin gave up her job
in insurance, feeling unable to dress as a woman
any longer, and began calling herself Paul.
"It amused me to watch his body language,"
says Karen. "He'd sit with his legs apart and
tell jokes just like Dad." As Paul embarked on
the full sex change, Karen was the one
explaining it all to her parents. "They were
befuddled by it all. My father just shut it out.
There was an ambiguous stage where Paul looked
neither one thing nor the other, and Dad was
embarrassed by what the neighbours would
say."
After Paul's mastectomy operation, the twins'
relationship was strangely different, yet the
same. "He does not act in any way differently
towards me now. It's a rather peculiar
relationship - I still don't think twice about
walking around naked in front of Paul, even
though he's a man now. We are now brother and
sister, but he's the same person and always will
be." But Paul's decision, necessary though it
may have been for him, has effectively cut Karen
off from an entire section of her past. "I hate
going to our local pub in Reading. People say,
'How's Martine?' What can I say? 'Martine was
killed in a car crash?' It would be easier to
say that than to start the whole story."
But after years of feeling guilty and
concerned about Paul, Karen can now rest assured
her brother is happy. "The only time Paul was
been really well is since his mastectomy," she
says. "Since then, he's been like a new
person."
Paul's Story
Paul
always knew something was wrong. But it was only
when he first heard the term "transsexual" that
his life changed forever. The treatment that
would transform Martine into Paul began with a
lifetime course of fortnightly high-dosage
testosterone injections. He is now considering
having surgery to construct a penis, an
operation that is regarded as tricky and
uncertain.
"I still have some pretty horrible surgery
ahead of me," he says, "but it is an operation I
simply must have. I buy a lottery ticket every
week in the hope that 'it could be me'. If I
win, I'll have the most expensive willy money
can buy. I simply need to be a complete man, to
look in the mirror and have the right body look
back at me."
In the meantime, he has to make do with a
strap-on prothesis. These false penises look and
feel quite realist: they have veins, retain heat
and are waterproof. You can even urinate through
them by means of a catheter. For sex, a manual
erection device is inserted and a tiny vibrator
directly stimulates the wearer's clitoris.
Although there's little sensation, Paul says,
"Making love with a false penis is better than
making love with no penis at all."
Paul's former life as a girl comes in handy.
Like most female-to-male transsexuals, he can
recall things men did and didn't do when they
tried to seduce him to him an advantage over
most men. "My biggest fear before I changed over
was I wouldn't get a girlfriend," he says, "but
I've been proved wrong on that score." He's been
going out with Laura for 10 months, a
relationship that developed when she wrote to
him after seeing him on a TV morning show in the
UK, publicising his book.
Paul feels his relationship with Karen
intensified as she watched her sister change to
a brother. He says in his book, "After her
initial devastation at my decision, she now
totally accepts it and is being consistently and
intensely supportive. We are twins - brother and
sister, spirits entwined. I can share my pains
and fears and she does not judge. I feel a foot
taller and braver with Karen by my side. She is
my guiding light, the female part of me, my
personal unpaid bodyguard."
He most needed Karen's support when the
public hospital he was supposed to be operated
at was forced to cancel his mastectomy for the
second time. Although he was offered another
date, the agony of waiting was driving him
crazy. He couldn't handle another cancellation
and so he decided to go to a Belgian hospital
which agreed to perform the operation whenever
he wanted.
In March last year, Paul returned from
Belgium flat-chested and one huge step closer to
being a man. But he had an awful time in
hospital. There were drips pumping antibiotics,
glucose and painkillers into his arms, and
drains coming out of his chest taking blood and
fluid to a bottle on the floor. A nagging
bladder infection meant he had to drag himself -
and all three bottles and tubes - out of bed
numerous times a day. Finally, he decided he had
had enough. He asked for the drains and drips to
be removed, discharged himself and returned home
to England.
Paul's new flat chest, bruised and covered in
scabs, was in his opinion, a transformation both
physically and mentally. Every day, his growing
chest hairs cover more of the scars and last
summer he bought his first pair of swimming
trunks. "Not a day goes by when I don't admire
my new chest in the mirror and do a quick count
of the number of hairs," he says proudly. "I
live a fulfilling life as a male. I go swimming
and I play football - but I still leave early to
avoid the showers."
"I cannot change my birth certificate, so I
am still a woman in the eye of the law. That's
the biggest joke going - just ask my girlfriend!
But I wouldn't have life any other way." Paul's
work colleagues are unaware of his
transsexuality. "Why would anyone guess?" he
says. "I look so masculine these days that
anyone I tell looks at me in disbelief. I've
never been one to hide from anything, so when
they find out, I will hold my head up with pride
and take whatever is coming to me."
"I
sometimes have a little smug feeling in my heart
these days, knowing things are finally going my
way and that what I've achieved has been in
spite of the odds being stacked against me. I
don't feel sorry for myself, ever, because being
transsexual and having to fight so hard for
everything has been the making of me as a
person. It's made me very compassionate and, I
think, wise beyond my 28 years. There's nothing
like a crisis to open your eyes to the real
world, and what's really important."
When asked about his plans for the future,
Paul says, "To get married, have babies, play
football for a [local] league side, meet
the boxer Prince Maseem Hamed, study the
mountain gorillas in Rwanda - not necessarily in
that order! "I now have a good job, a place to
live, a car, money in my pocket, a really
fantastic girlfriend and I have my self-esteem
back. All these things sound rather basic, but
believe me, they can become huge challenges when
you're born without the basic equipment - the
right body - you need to survive.
"My book was written as tribute to the little
boy Paul whom I abandoned all those years ago
when I made the unconscious decision to conform
in a society defined by rigid rules and shallow
stereotypes. This little boy has suffered in
silence for far too long, and now he is reborn a
man."
Laura's Story
Laura
is Paul's girlfriend. They've been together for
10 months.
"My partner Paul is transsexual," she says,
"but that's by the by - primarily, he's gorgeous
and I think he's great. To me, Paul is every
inch a man. I never see anything else. In fact,
he's such a typical man in some respects that I
find it hard to believe what he once was."
When Laura saw Paul on TV and realised he'd
had a sex change, she was amazed and
disbelieving. But, as she got to know him, she
says, "I realised he's more of a man than any
other man I know. He's honest, sensitive, yet
strong with it. He's powerful." While she had no
difficult accepting Paul's transsexualism, Laura
think other people might not be as tolerant of
her. "Some people are very narrow minded and, if
they knew my feelings for him, would consider me
a lesbian. I only entertained the idea for about
1.5 seconds - he's not a girl, and if that's
what I saw, I would surely be gay. But I'm
heterosexual, always have been."
"I am behind Paul 110 percent, whatever he
does - as long as it's legal! - and I look
forward to the day when he is able to realise
his dreams. He's a fantastic man and he deserves
to be happy and have the best out of life. I
know he wants children, and I think it would be
criminal to deny him his chance to be a father -
he'd be a brilliant dad.
"I don't care what people think or say,'
Laura says. "I'm so proud of what Paul's
achieved and of what he's been prepared to go
through. As far as I'm concerned, I'm with a
man, and he's the best man I've ever known."
