There's not much that distinguishes
Matthew and Peter Bennett from other men their
age. They yell at the ball game every Saturday,
their idea of exercise is walking their beer
bellies to the local bar, and they moan about
being dragged to the shops by their wives. But
they never use the urinals in public toilets and
their unceasing joy at shaving every morning,
their childlike pride in lifting their shirts to
show off hairy chests, and the occasional lapses
into referring to each other as "she" are
telltale signs these 40-year-old brothers were
born female.
Matthew and Peter are the world's first
identical twins to undergo a sex-change
operation, and now the former Cheryl and
Katherine say they have achieved complete
happiness as men by finding wives.
We had the change together because it was
something we both needed," explains Peter, the
slightly taller and quieter of the two. "We feel
we were brought into the world as twins for a
reason, maybe to help or console each other. For
as long as I can remember, we knew there was
something wrong. I can remember as far back as
the age of five not necessarily wanting to be a
man, but thinking I was a man. It didn't occur
to me that I was a girl."
Matthew nods in agreement. His voice is not
as deep as Peter's, but is still undeniably
male: "I can remember playing with dolls at a
very early age, but playing with them from a
male viewpoint. I assumed the role of the doll's
father, not its mother - it was the role I felt
comfortable with."
The twins now live in Phoenix, Arizona,
several hundred kilometres from the tiny farming
town of Vandalia, Illinois, where they grew up
but were forced to leave after starting hormone
therapy in 1975. (The jibes and insults from
their neighbours became unbearable and they lost
their jobs as factory workers.) Doctors
recommended they begin a new life in a new
town.
"We don't remember who talked about being
boys first - that's how far back it's been,"
says Matthew. "We shared the secret for so long.
We both remember going to bed at night and
praying out loud that God would make us
boys."
Peter interrupts his brother: "When we were
eight or nine, we started thinking we'd wake up
and be transformed. Of course, we were always
disappointed the next day. Our mother put us in
identical dresses right up to the age of 13. I
remember taking a pair of scissors to my hair
and Matthew painting his yellow dress with black
paint. Our mother went mad. She used to say we
were always acting like boys."
Even at preschool, the twins knew they were
different but it wasn't until they started
school that they pinpointed their "otherness".
Every night, they would retreat to their bedroom
to talk through the realisation.
"I don't think boys and girls notice the
gender thing until they get to school," says
Matthew. "When I distinguished the difference, I
identified myself as being male. In fourth or
fifth grade we'd always be imitating our dad.
We'd copy him shaving in the mirror. And we'd
dress up in his clothes. Back in the '60's, he
used to wear his hair in a quiff like Elvis. So
we started wearing hair gell too. I didn't like
how females looked."
Puberty came as a serious blow. Peter had his
first period at 12, a month before Matthew. "My
mom ran into the bathroom because I was
hysterical. I said, "What's happening to me?"
She said, "It's OK, you're just becoming a
woman." I yelled, "No!" I really felt my world
had ended".
For Matthew, it was developing breasts that
hit him the hardest.
"We didn't have that much as females, but
what we did have, we didn't want. We always used
to dress real male. We were lucky because the
'70's was a bra-less society, so we didn't have
to wear them. We used to wear real baggy
T-shirts to hide our breasts, and hiking boots
and men's jeans. We carried purses because we
had to, but we'd always hide them under a pile
of books before going to school."
"But it was more than just feeling
comfortable in those clothes. I wanted to be
unattractive to men. We got teased really badly
at school. Other kids saw us in the lesbian way
because we weren't feminine at all. The guys at
school used to call us 'the ugh sisters'. They
would taunt us and chant 'ugh, ugh, ugh' down
the hall after us. Once they paid a guy to come
up and kiss me. We wanted to be their friends
but they wouldn't have it. We were real
loners."
One the night of the school prom, when the
twins were 18, Matthew deliberately arranged to
compete at a local athletic event, Peter,
meanwhile, put on his mother's lipstick and a
brave face: "I felt as though I was in drag all
night. My lipstick was a mess because I didn't
know how to put it on…I never wanted to
know. My mother helped me. She was ecstatic. It
was like a sign to her that things were finally
getting on the right track."
"I was tired of everyone telling me I was
butch, saying I had to sleep with a man to see
how it feels - as if that was going to change my
attitude. I looked on going to the prom as
taking the heat off us. There was no sex
involved. It was just for presentation. A guy
said he would take me as a gesture. That was my
first date."
Soon after, Matt fell in love with a girl
four years his junior: "When I left high school,
I had a crush on this girl. She was straight but
there was a real chemistry thing. We would do
things that two girls wouldn't normally do
together, like if we were driving down the road,
she'd have her hand on my knee."
"I consider her my first love, although we
never did anything. She'd come and stay the
night at my house. I wanted her more than
anything. I used to lay next to her at night and
want her real bad. But because I couldn't have
her as a man, I didn't really want her. And I
didn't want her touching me because I hated my
body. The thought of her touching my breasts or
between my legs really turned me off. That was
how I knew I wasn't gay."
But twins eventually lost their virginity to
men: Peter at the age of 20, Matthew at 21. Both
say sex with men felt uncomfortable and "wrong".
Then they saw a television program about
transsexuals. The revelation was Matthew's
saving. Their mother had died of cancer earlier
that year and their father was drinking heavily.
Both had just left high school and they had
grown depressed about their sexuality. To this
day, Matt is not sure what stopped him holding
his father's shotgun to his head and pulling the
trigger.
Peter often felt suicidal, too, right up the
day he underwent surgery.
"I would pray to God that he would just take
me. It got to the point where I'd say, "I'm
going to do this surgery and if God doesn't want
me to do this then he can take me on the
table."
During a six-month period, the twins were
given more than 100 psychological and physical
tests. They were also evaluated for two years
before being allowed to start testosterone
injections. A year later, they had mastectomies,
a year after that, hysterectomies. Matthew was
the first twin to undergo each operation.
"It was an advantage being twins and going
through it together because we could take care
of each other after the operation," he explains.
"Taking the hormones was like a combination of
male puberty and female menopause. We loved
everything that happened to us. Our female
organs shut down and our clitorises enlarged.
After three months our voices began to crack and
after two years we started getting facial hairs.
The clitoris is the female equivalent of a
penis. When you take testosterone, it enlarges.
It even has a little head like a penis. And it
gets erect like a penis. It's almost long enough
to have sex with a woman but not quite. I wish
it was."
Surgeons can now build a penis on to an
enlarged clitoris. The procedure costs about
$65,000 and the twins are saving for it. They
say they'll wait until they both have enough
money to do it at the same time, as they did
with the other treatments. For now, though, they
insist that the sex they have as men surpasses
the experiences they had when they were
women.
"We have orgasms now that I'd say were male,"
explains Peter. "Women's are more than one at a
time and they're not so intense. Now I just have
one big long one, like guys do. I think men
definitely get the better deal. My first sexual
experience as a man was very gratifying. The sex
was completely different. It might not be normal
sex because I haven't got a penis but it doesn't
take away from the sensation. Without being too
graphic, I'm sure oral sex is as gratifying to
me as it is to any male."
Both twins have had several relationships
with women, but it was not until Peter met Doris
and Matthew met Mandy that they felt "complete"
as men. The couples married in Las Vegas on
Valentine's Day last year. They say telling
their partners that they were transsexuals was
one of the most difficult experiences they have
ever faced.
"It's a terrible thing, knowing when it's a
good time to reveal our past," explains Peter.
"If you tell too soon, before that person even
knows you, you're not giving yourself a chance.
Some women can't cope with it. But it's been
different every time."
"I once met this Filipino girl," he
continues, "a total knockout. On our second
date, we went back to my apartment. I was trying
to explain myself and she was tearing off my
clothes. It didn't bother her at all, not at
all. The sad thing was she was not ready to
settle down with anyone."
Matthew told Mandy after they had been dating
for one month.
"I was really shocked at first," says Mandy,
42, a cashier who met Matthew through work. "For
a while I was very confused. I didn't know what
a transsexual was. But after he explained to me
what it meant and all that he had been through,
I realised it didn't bother me at all. I knew
that I could look all my life to find someone as
much of a man as Matthew. I think his history
makes him a better man than all the others. He's
sensitive and considerate in a way I've never
seen in other men."
"I was married once before and the sex that
Matt and I share is 10 times better than I ever
had. I'm more satisfied now than I've ever been.
I don't miss the fact he doesn't have a penis.
There are other things you can do. I can truly
say that our sex life is better than most normal
coupls. As for children, I thought about having
them when I was younger but, at 42, I think I'm
past the kids stage, so it doesn't bother
me."
Doris, a 33-year-old auxiliary nurse, says
she would never have started dating Peter had he
not confessed he was a transsexual when they
first met.
"I went to borrow a tin of cat food - we live
in the same apartment building," she says, "I
was surprised when he told me, but actually very
relieved. I'd had several bad experiences with
men and had given up on them completely. The
fact that he had been a woman once made him more
trusting and compassionate. I can honestly say
that making love with him is gentler and more
tender than I've ever experienced before."
Both couples live in separate apartments in
the same block. Peter is also an auxiliary nurse
at a local hospital; Matthew is a security
guard. They don't tell friends or employers
about their former lives - the pain of people's
reactions in their home town is still too fresh.
They say that joking about the change makes the
bleak times bearable - like their initial forays
into men's toilets.
"It was hard going in there the first time,"
says Peter. "But also very funny. There are two
types of men: the ones who stand there not
interested in what's going on at all, and there
are ones who compare. We have to use the
cubicles because we haven't had the surgery yet.
Even so, we don't hang around in there."
It took a while for the twins to get used to
referring to each other as brothers and to call
each other by their new names, which they chose
from the Bible.
"Every once in a while we still mess up,"
says Peter. "But our family has totally
adjusted. Our nephews have been raised to call
us Uncle Matt and Uncle Peter, which I
love."
But it was the gradual changes to their
bodies that the twins relished most during their
early days as men.
"The first time I noticed being recognised as
male was on the telephone," says Peter. "I
remember the euphoria when a woman called me
'sir'." Matt also vividly recalls the first time
he was taken for a man. "I was out shopping with
my sister-in-law. We were still having the shots
and obviously just starting to look like men.
The sales assistant referred to me as a man and
my sister-in-law corrected her, which
embarrassed the salesgirl, but I was loving the
heck out of it. It shocked the life out of my
sister-in-law. It's like being around someone
all the time when they gain weight; you can't
always see it."
Meanwhile, the brothers are looking forward
to their final operations.
"Men get more respect. They shouldn't but
they do," says Matt. "I can remember being
interrupted if I was expressing a viewpoint as a
woman. Now, a guy will never do that with
another guy. One of the physical things I love
best about being a man is the chest hair. I like
when a woman puts her fingers through it and
lays her head on my shoulder. That, for me, is
everything."
Peter is equally enthusiastic.
"There are a lot of things I like. I still
really enjoy shaving every day, which is unusual
for a man. But the best thing of all is being
comfortable as men. I no longer have to put up a
façade. Now I am finally able to be the
person I always felt I was."
