Australia Day?

Today was officially called "Australia Day" though some call it "Invasion Day". On this day in 1788 the British penal colony of New South Wales was proclaimed. Who among those present on that sandy, scrubby clearing among the strangest of flora and fauna would have wanted to be here?

Not the convicts, shackled and "transported" for life imprisonment nor the marines or sailors, press-ganged into a long and brutal service, nor the government officials tasked with a near impossible undertaking in the harshest and most distant of locations, nor the aboriginal onlookers, who little understood the perils these incomprehensible and fatally underestimated strangers brought.

None among the "invaders" wanted to be here. Strange invaders!

Yet invasion it was. Unasked for. Deadly. Beset, despite the combined wisdoms of the Enlightment and the Dreamtime, with a total failure on both sides to deal with the reality that now faced them.

I don't feel comfortable with either "Australia Day" or "Invasion Day". Neither captures the reality of the other. Four years after 1788 my own maternal forebears arrived in chains. I am fifth generation Australian. My great-great-great-grandfather was sentenced to death in England for stealing a sheep. His sentence was commuted to transportation for life to the colonies. He would never see his homeland again. His wife was also a convict from Ireland, sentenced for life to a strange and hostile land far from her family homeland. "Invasion Day" does not give justice to their real pain and suffering - neither in England and Ireland nor here. They were our first refugees - shackled in our first detention centres. Good to see ya keeping up a fine old Aussie tradition Mr Howard.

Years later in the 1870's my paternal forebears came out from Sweden and again from Ireland. Refugees again, this time from bankruptcy; personal on the one hand and political on the other. None of them came willingly, all of them came hoping against hope - for something better in this harshly beautiful but alien land.

Now it is alien no longer - for no one. Except those our "liberal" government keep incarcerated behind razor wire or ship offshore to Nauru. Somethings never change.

So shall we call it Convicts Day or Settlers Day or Assisted Passage Day or Boat People Day or Invasion Day or Stolen Generation Day (and which stolen generation?) ?

I would call it Australia Dreaming Day. For the aboriginal concept of the Dreaming (or Dreamtime) has entered firmly into our everyday lexicon and our popular imagination. That would give some recognition to the primacy or the indigenous experience and also to the concept of combined modern nationhood and also to the collective Dreaming of all who have come here hoping against hope for a new and better life - millenia ago across now sunken land bridges or just yesterday on a rusting fishing boat.

In any case, it is an indictment of this nation that on this so-called Australia day 2005, widespread and meaningful reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians remains unachieved and specifically unsanctioned by this federal government. It is also an indictment of this nation that hundreds of children, women and men are detained without trial or charge behind razor wire in detention centres or "transported" to Nauru for no other reason than that this government refuses to treat refugees compassionately and humanely. It is also an indictment against this nation that gay, lesbian and bisexual people who comprise some ten percent of the population should be specifically legislated by this federal government into second class citiizenship. And it is an indictment of this nation that powerful and vocal elements in this society, most notably the so-called Christian Right (whom I declare neither Christian nor right) should seek to erode those civil liberties and those cornerstones of Austrailan egalitarianism and common social justice which have been so hard-won over the last thirty years.

Australia, you have not yet earned your day.

When I am bad

When I am good
I am foolish.
When I am bad
They come down,
Descending with terrible talons,
Tearing my head apart.

The Moon...

The moon is a bone,
Hard and white, bright;
Pointing the way...
As bones do.
Enduring,
Indestructible,
Irrevocable.

The moon is a belly,
Round, rising,
Swollen to the full
With the promise
Of tides and rhythyms
Racing to the sea.

Under the moon,
The bone white belly of the moon,
I howl;
A sharp silhouette
On the jagged ridge of consequence.
A she-wolf
Crying for her lost soul...mate,
Calling for her mongrel litter of results.

She prowls, wide-eyed,
The harsh, stark landscapes of the heart;
Listens, intent,
To the wind's whisper of change
Sighing among the shadows of the soul.

Lopes down
Off the moral high ground
And bloodies her fangs
Feeding the pups of her needs.

The moon bleeds.

A new English word

There's now a new word in common use in the English language. You now, used by school kids and housewives and blokes in the pub: TSUNAMI.

It joins just a few other Japanese words that have entered the English language like kamikaze and samurai and sushi.

And it joins a few other words (and phrases) that have recently entered into common usage in the English language: Weapons of Mass Destruction, coalition, embedded, terrorist, fundamentalist, Christian right, same-sex, jihad, suicide bomber, 9/11, 24/7 and ground zero.

Peter Kroyer "Women on the beach" courtesy of art.com

On the margins of the sea...

On the margins of the sea, we
Women weave our web
Of sharing and understanding.

Threaded with the wet, cool
Sand between our toes,
The damp hems of dresses
Caressing the tops of our feet.

And the sound of the surf
Singing the song of the timeless,
To rocks wrought out of change.

The wind’s whisper,
Shepherding the sands into rifts and runnels.
And the light of day, rising and fading,
And the cry of the gulls, rising and fading.

And the soft touch of our cheeks
And sunlight spun in fine hair
And your eyes…
And mine…

Holding the world.

Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema "The Baths at Caracalla" courtesy of art.com

On the gift of women's friendship...

You know, yesterday's encounter with a group of men calling out that I was a guy (see previous blog) got me thinking about my precious friendships with some very wonderful women most (though not all) of whom are non-transsexual.

I realised that however much I might find myself being immersed in lived womanhood 24/7 (which is a quietly but deeply wondrous thing in itself!) I remain, courtesy of certain physical characteristics of appearance (please! donations gratefully accepted! my surgeon is waiting) and my openness about my condition, a visible example of the transsexual woman and thus am able to readily arouse in people whatever thoughts and feelings they may have about those of us with that condition.

So I realised what a BIG thing it was for my friends to bestow upon me the precious and wondrous gift of their friendship...their acceptance, their willingness to stand alongside me in public; to have coffee with me in the mall, to go shopping with me, to just walk alongside me in the street - me the tallest woman in the known universe (hell no I ain't - I'm a measly li'l ol' 6' 4") but you know what I mean - I am fairly noticeable. Plus you know I tend not to wear the amorphous, colourless, shapeless garb that goes for women's dress among my age group. Yep! Li'l miss Paula does like her floral hippie skirts and white sandals and butterfly brooches, doesn't she? No hope, for some people is there (like superannuated hippie chicks stuck in the seventies!)?

I am kidding (kinda). I do wear other things!

I thought particularly of the fact that a friend has suggested we get together soon in the naked, all woman, everything's on show setting of the Korean baths. When I go there (as I have already on a couple of occasions with other friends) I notice other women looking at me, can hear the cogs going round. Oh! they smile nicely at me but I'm sure they've sized up what kind of woman I am (mind you that includes, I think, other things as well as me just being transsexual). I do appreciate that their willingness to accompany me in that setting particularly is a special sign of their willingness to risk being counted as well as a great acknowledgement of my womanhood.

Sooo...I love them very much and appreciate them enormously, appreciate and treasure the GIFT that they give. Their beauty, their strength, their intelligence and insight, their creativity and talent, their acceptance, their tolerance, their intimacy and sympathy and empathy, their joy and their sorrow, their sharing, their solitude, their openness, their boundaries, their challenge...their uniqueness of being.

THANKYOU!

On being the butt of disparaging comments and laughter...

Yesterday I was walking home from work through the mall and some guys yelled out "Hey! There's that guy!" Other words were muttered in the group, followed by mocking laughter. That particular kind of laughter that guys seem to reserve for their disparagement of women.

I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt. Mind you it may have meant that they had seen the Bodyworks show about my sex reassignment surgery which if nothing else has - even for them - the potential to sow seeds of change. Maybe tho' it's just that they have often observed me from the earliest days of my transition from the vantage point of their park bench.

Interestingly (sadly) almost the only time I get any disparaging comments is from what I would catagorize as "small groups of adolescent and/or socially-disadvantaged males". Typically they are of rough appearance and manner of speaking, sit around malls in groups, apparently unemployed and exhibit one or more of the following characteristics: drinking surreptitiously from brown paper bags, arguing loudly amongst themselves, staring and commenting on passers-by and exhibiting the overly loud and slurred speech patterns associated with a recent methadone hit.

I figure that they carry many hurts inside, were once vulnerable, hopeful little boys who early on encountered a particularly hostile and unloving world; have little self-esteem and see women as both potential threats to that fragile sense of self and potential props. Women are a dangerous and unpredictable threat; one they "can't live with but can't live without". Women must be "put down" into the subordinate and safe and unthreatening category of sex-objects about which one can make smutty innuendos amongst the beta-male group. Alpha male lords it over beta male lords it over zeta female. Somewhere below that pecking order are children, the children they themselves were once.

Women who don't fit the stereotype of a desirable sexual object and accoutrement (and therefore couldn't be potential props to their egos) have only one use - as tall poppies to be cut down to make themselves "taller".

I tried to think what kind of woman I could have been and NOT been a potential target for their slurs and mocking. Mmmm! Couldn't think of one. Whether I was young or old, fat or thin, curvy or straight-up-and-down, ugly or drop-dead gorgeous, lesbian or straight, transsexual or non-transsexual I was prey to their famished egos, road-kill before the juggernaut of their despair.

Of couse in my case there was the overlay of being transsexual. That brings up the uncomfortable demon (I'm sure - in their minds anyway) of "homosexuality". Now I see myself as a hetreosexual woman in terms of my relationships with men. But for men I am a problematical creature. Obviously I'm feminine and look (mostly) and act like a woman but they can't get away from that old nagging thought, "Ummm! Isn't she really a guy? Didn't she used to have a penis? What if I got an erection...would I be gay?" And that's the ultimate threat and put-down for the beta male.

There seems to be a viewpoint amongst that particular demographic that says any woman is only useful as your "mum" or a "root", ie. emotional cossetting, sexual gratification and ego-enhancement within the beta group. If you're old you can only be useful if you can bestow mothering. If you're ugly you're a waste of space. If you're lesbian you're a waste of space until you experience a "good root" (from them, of course) which will cure you since that's all you were lacking in order to make you useful. Of course if you're an ugly lesbian, forget it - there's no hope. Besides being ugly explains why you are lesbian. I mean who (male that is) would want you?

Now if you're a transsexual woman the matter is even more complicated. You are probably going to be seen as ugly to them so that's a black mark to start with and even you look drop-dead gorgeous there's the old problem men always encounter with transsexual women. Aren't they "really" male? So if I feel attracted to them or even accepting of them then I must be gay, hey? Can't let anyone think I'm gay. I don't think heterosexual men can help themselves. They can't help responding in some way to a transsexual woman's femininity and that arouses the old spectre of homosexuality to them. Disparagement and cruelty is the minimum safety response in that case. Violence is never far away.

You know, I can't help feel - despite knowing some lovely men (Alex being the prime example!) that the radical separatist feminists had a point when they said that men per se were the problem. I can understand the thinking behind testerone and strength and focus and drive - works well when hunting woolly mammoths - but somehow I just don't think the design was as well thought through as it might have been. Like designing a truck with a powerful enough engine to carry heavy loads but installing bicycle brakes to stop it and tiny slits for a windscreen to see out of. Can't see where I'm going, can't stop, WATCH OUT!

Nightly on TV I see that it is always young, socially disadvantaged males who throng the streets brandishing machetes and AK-47's...and hate and rage. Nightly I see that it is largely women and children who trudge despairingly and resignedly over the mountain passes into vulnerable and shaky refugee camps.

What's the answer...for them...for us..for me? I don't know.

Maybe...love is the answer.

Maybe...we should start now...we've got a long way to go...and some big design flaws to overcome.

My sister and I at the End The Lies rally before the last federal election 2004 (it didn't!) 

Watch This Space...

...for political comment on the year to come.

• Why did the Federal Government leave out sexual preference from it's Landmark Human Rights document?
  
• So 10% of the Australian people are second class citizens?
  
• And we're all OK with that?
  
• What about when our son or daughter tells us they're gay?
  
• Will it still be OK?
  
• What will become of the Christian Right's attempts to have the Federal government bar transsexual and intersexual people from marrying?
  
• Will this mean genetic testing for ALL Australians before allowing them to marry?
  
• How will we otherwise know who is racially and genetically pure?
  
• Now who was that other guy who was very concerned about racial and sexual purity?
  
• Was that in Germany in the 30's?
• Hey! wasn't that the guy who had the really cool idea about detention centres? Is that where we got the idea for ours from?
• How come his said "Through Work Comes Freedom" over the gates and ours don't - what our inmates don't get freedom even if they work for it?
• Anyway transsexual and intersexual people can't bear children can they so they shouldn't marry should they - marriage, after all, is for the procreation of children isn't it? Isn't that what our Prime Minister said?
  
• Mmm! So I can't get married if I've had ovarian or testicular cancer? If I'm a woman over 55 I can't get married but if I'm a man I can?
  
• Nah! That would be stupid wouldn't it? The Prime Minister must have been kidding, hey?
  
• Now Iraq's nothing like Vietnam, right?
  
• So how come convoy's are being ambushed, puppet government officials are assassinated, the Americans are using tanks against snipers, we bomb the crap out of residential zones to kill the enemy but only see dead children emerging, we're there to save the people but they hate us and shoot us, our garrisons are hunkered down in bunkers and still get bombed inside their compounds, the country is ruined and infrastructure devastated?
  
• Ummm, didn't I see that on Black&White TV in the '60's?
  
• Oh! No, that was Vietnam...that was different...somehow, wasn't it?
  
• Hey! You know those politicians you admire that come out and admit their wrongs publicly? Ummm! How come John Howard's never admitted any wrongs? Oh! That's right...he's never done anything wrong has he?
  
• If he's that squeaky clean how come he isn't the pope?
  
• At least we're going to have American troops stationed on Australian soil which will be under JOINT control - that'll make us safe...and popular, won't it!
  
• Isn't it interesting that whenever something's under joint control the Americans get to make the rules.
  
• How come a little country like New Zealand that has a female Prime Minister and transsexual and Rastifarian members of parliament has the balls to stand up to America and formulate INDEPENDANT foriegn policy and we don't?
  
• And why don't we sign the Kyoto protocol? Are greenhouse gases good?
  
• Or are we waiting for America to sign it first?
  
• And why can't same-sex people get married and call it marriage? Would my marriage crash and burn because the guys next door tied the knot? Yep, that's got to be it. I mean after all it couldn't be because of domestic violence, marital rape, female genital mutilation or child abuse, could it?
  
• Or could it? I know, we stop gays and lesbians from marrying and then there'll be no more domestic violence, marital rape, female genital mutilation or child abuse and everyone will live happily ever after.
  
• Well that was easy wasn't it?
  

This Evening

This evening will gather me
About in her skirts
Of mauve and rose and indigo,
Warm with the spice and promise
Of your love.

In the growing dim
I will be peering, peering,
Looking for your coming.
Your little car,
Curving the bend
In a grand flourish!

And your face will be handsome
Again!
And a-glow,
Eyes gleaming,
Happy-bright and appreciative
Of my looks and presence.

And I will seem to you,
In this old body,
To be a bright
Fresh flower
Offered freely into
Your hand and heart.

And in your arms,
Embracing,
I will feel a young girl
Not again – I never was
But am now.

My thanks,
My love.

Oooh!! What's that? 

Me as the dorky girl pretending to be the boy who loved cats!

On Cats

I LOVE CATS!

OK! So now you know who you're dealing with.

Yep! One of those eccentric be-cardiganned old cat ladies. Not some beautiful wind-swept kept-her-looks dog-lover strolling alluringly bare-footed along Coogee beach at twilight with her beloved Labrador frollicking in the shallows beside her. Nup! I'm the crazy old witch lady up on the hill who potters around her dilapidated old Addams' family house calling to cats who flow like a furry river around her wrinkled stocking feet.

Nah! Only kidding! I don't even have a cat. But I do love cats - ever since I was a little girl pretending to be a little boy (see picture above). I have had three cats (and one dwarf rabbit vcalled Mr Bunny). Their names were Smokey, a three legged Chinchilla, Katey Kittie, a grey tabby kitten who used to hug me around the neck and sleep in my bed snuggled up in the crook of my knees and then have to come up for air and sneeze in my face! And my dear Pussma. She was an abused, abandoned, half-feral little kitty who came to steal our dog's food and whose trust I painstakingly earned over a long time to the point where she would allow me to leave her asleep on the lounge and go to bed. She would come in the wee small hours of the morning and gently meow at my bedroom door and then wait patiently and trustingly while I opened the back door for her. She remained very much an outdoor cat and would only come in for me. I still dream about seeing her again - she was a great cat-person.

Yep, I see cats as people - and my equal, in their own little way. Certainly, I do not see myself as in any way more important than them. I love them to be my "familars" and to allow me into their trust. Pussma used to treat me variously as her kitten, her male mate, her female mate, her mother and a tree.

Since the time I was that dorky girl-in-a-boy's-body-child I have burned with love for cat people.

Sandra Haldeman Martz wrote a book called "When I am old I shall wear purple". When I am old I shall feed cats.

Anyway, since moving in with Alex here in the old Addams Family Home I have been attempting to curry favour with the neighbouring cats who use our wild windswept olive grove of a backyard as a sanctuary.

Yesterday, VICTORY! I managed to make friends with Junior, a pretty black and white boy (?). He is very affectionate and allows me to pat him and let me feed him some milk. (see picture above). He had just emerged as the victor (I think) of a mexican stand-off with "Ginger" who is mountain lion-coloured boy (?) who terrorizes any cat that has the temerity to enter our (his?) yard. Junior is a newcomer tho' and seems to have a certain self-possession. After Junior left the field of battle, "Ginger" returned to sun himself near the lemon tree. He lets me come and go as long as I don't try to approach him. So I'll leave it at that for now.

My youngest grandaughter is hell-bent on getting me a kitten to replace Pussma but I don't think there's room in this here pussy town for another fur totin' gun-slinger!

Me and friends at the opening night of Becoming Woman November 2004

On Friends

Looking back on what I wrote on 2004 I felt that I hadn't said enough on friends...and friendship.

I don't think I ever had a real friend before I transitioned. There were some - like Alex whom I first met 25 years ago! - who were promising but nothing enduring ever came of them.

There must have been a lot of reasons bound up with the type of person I am to cause that. But I do believe that a big factor was my unresolved transsexualism - a condition I've lived with consciously since the age of 4 or 5.

What I mean is that I think it's real hard to acquire and put to use the requirements of friendship (which I see as integrity, honesty, responsibility, self-discipline, self-acceptance and loving oneself and the world for who you are and what it is) when you are spending a considerable proportion of your life energy dissembling, deceiving, hiding, faking and masking.- the real you that is.

It is said that the way transsexual people in a hostile (or perceived hostile) social setting get by is to create a false persona which accords with the messages they receive about how and who they are supposed to be. In other words, for me, who wanted only to be a girl, and was most interested in being with and doing girl stuff, the safe thing to do was to create a false boy persona who did boy stuff; stuff that did not arouse giggling, ridicule, harassment and bullying.

Now if you're living two lives - the inner one that feels most real and most like you and most desirable but is verboten and dangerous to express - and an outer one that is safe and acceptable but to which you feel little deep attachment - which do you use to form friendships? Obviously, you can't use the inner feminine (in my case) one because friendships are the occasions of great intimacy and risk but if you use the outer (masculine) one which is not "you" how do you bring to bear the prerequistes and concomitants of friendship - namely authenticity, self-acceptance and spontaneity?

So "friends" came and went like wisps of wind, leaving little trace. I was a distant, aloof, fickle character lacking colour and allure.

I didn't really care for friends, didn't really mind when they drifted away (or more likely, when I did). I felt safest and most comfortable alone. My relationships were Linus security blankets and weren't real either. We never got to be friends. They usually dragged on far too long and ended sadly if not acriminiously. If I revealed my feminine self friends and partners alike would become nervous and uncomfortable.

So friendships didn't factor very highly in my considerations when I embarked - belatedly - on my journey of transition to womanhood. But god! did I find out the meaning of loneliness and the colour of it - the blackest of blacks!

But as I became me , the more authentic, open, exposed, real me people were intrigued, attracted. Friendships did develop. Oh! there were some false starts - I guess I was a pretty pathetic (50 year old!) puppy to start with but eventually I found a solid core of real kindred spirits with whom to begin the equally amazing and challenging journey towards friendship.

They have taught me a lot - and put up with a lot I am sure. They have been an integral part of my growth towards not only lived womanhood but also lived humanity and towards wholeness and authenticity and integrity.

I envisage my friends (mostly female) as treasured flowers and herbs in a garden which delight me and fill my days with beauty and fragrance and colour and healing and learning but which I must tend and water if they are to survive and grow.

Perhaps I madden or annoy or bore them but I love to ring them and write them and send them little cards and pot-pourri ( I am the original card lady - no, not true, that's my mum from whom I learned the habit!).

I go into paroxysms of angst and worry lest i have said wrong things or been too intrusive. So much do I value their nourishment of heart and soul.

Maybe I'm "needy" or perhaps emotionally famished or perhaps just some gawky fourteen year old dork trapped in the body of a fussy old woman.

Anyway, whatever! I love my girlfriends ENORMOUSLY! And my darling man, Alex, the love of my life, my lover and partner and husband is my BEST friend. You know, when you get to a really dark, windy, howling, wet patch on the road and you look across and your best friend is there, trudging along, head bent down towards the storm, right there with you. That kind of best friend!

Yep! We need friends...whatever our journey!

Woman's Memories

There is a hole in my head, in my memory, in my memory of things.

Like the criminally insane dosed up with shock-after-shock treatment,

Someone has blown away important, essential memories.

Left black holes where there should have been…what? I was going to say light but, also…significant darkness, owned darkness, darkness and light that were mine.

All these, these black holes, these absences of memory aren’t mine – they’re evidence of theft.

My memories are my stolen generation, wrenched from my desperate arms.

See…

I can’t remember – ever – ever - being a little girl…ever.

Can’t remember my first school tunic, can’t remember my black patent party shoes with the straps that came off.

Can’t remember Miss Williamson saying, “P-a-u-l-a K-a-y-e, come up here, now, and write the answer on the board”. Why?

I can remember my first doll, her name was Mary Lou – but I can’t remember why they said I couldn’t keep her.

I can’t remember being a teenage girl – gawky and gangly, straight-up-and-down and spurned even by the nerds; my breasts embarrassing little points and my face as poxy as a harvest of sin. Or can I? Sometimes I think it was yesterday but that couldn’t be right…could it?

I can’t remember my first period. Can’t remember standing up in class and all the boys behind me hooting with disgust and derision. I can’t remember that.

I can’t remember my wedding dress, my bouquet of white roses. Can’t remember the look of adoration in your eyes as I walked, slowly, awkwardly - I thought - up the aisle.

And I can’t remember being pregnant, my back aching to the marrow; going to the toilet…again and again. Can’t remember my flushed face, the deep contentment and the fear. Can’t remember the first contraction and the last; crushing your hand in mine, screaming at you, at the world. Can’t remember the end, the beginning; can’t remember you, pink and tiny and shrivelled, still damp on my belly, between my breasts. Utterly beautiful beyond any beauty I had ever, ever seen.

Why can’t I remember you, remember your name, you…my dearest, dearest first child?

Strange, I do remember my first boyfriend – I just can’t remember why he was fifty-five…or I was fifty. I can’t remember what I was doing all those years…before I was fifty.

Someone has taken away my memories and given me someone else’s.


There is one thing I remember though.

I remember my first high heels.

And I remember…they were white, peep-toe, mid-heel, secret, hidden, furtive, shameful, dirty, sick, perverted…guilty.

But I can’t remember why.


And I’m not sure quite what to do.

About these memories…these un-memories.

About being a woman who hasn’t got a woman’s memories.


But I remember yesterday...the soft, soothing touch of your gentle hand on my bare neck...and the love in your eyes.

And tomorrow I will remember today.