Becoming Myself: The True Story of Thomas Who Became Sara (23 page)

I could barely hear her, so didn’t recognise her voice at first. She eventually came through clearer and told me why she was phoning me. She was calling out of respect to tell me that the gardaí in Ballyfermot would be contacting me to take another statement about what I knew of my sisters being abused by our father. ‘Sweet Jesus’ was my response, followed by a long pause and I really struggled to come up with a response. On the one hand, I really didn’t want to be talking to any Dunne and I was shocked to be hearing that the case against their father had been re-opened. I say ‘their father’ because, just like their mother, he was certainly no father to me. Shortly afterwards two garda detectives came back and took a second statement from me.

Since first writing this chapter, I’ve been contacted by two of my sisters and a brother, who want to re-establish their relationship with me. In fact, I’ve already met my two sisters
and understand that a third also wants to make contact with me.

When I met my sisters Sophie and Clare it was a wonderful and loving experience and demonstrated the utter futility of the divisions and distance that had been between us. We had very open and honest conversations about the various issues that divided us and the fact that I’d been so shamefully treated by my entire family. The girls accepted this fully and apologised to me not once but several times over. I have to admit to having been suspicious about why they wanted to meet me after all this time, but they have since demonstrated how genuine they are, with Sophie and her husband travelling all the way from Cavan to see me. And I even got to have a life-long dream come true: to have a real girlie time with my sister Clare as we hung out together on her sofa in our pyjamas watching movies and drinking wine. It was every bit as wonderful as I’d always imagined it would be.

My brother Peter heard about my appearance on
TV
3’s
Ireland AM
programme, and that I’d looked very well, and told me that he wanted to meet me. He had spoken to my sisters and had been shocked to learn the extent of the lies told about me over the years. He now seems to want to put matters right between us. He concluded one conversation over the phone by telling me: ‘Sara-Jane, you don’t have an evil bone in your body and you never did anything to any of us.’ Peter is now helping me to get some photos for this book and we’re trying to arrange a meeting to see if we can re-establish some sort of relationship in the future. It feels wonderful to have a family again. This is the way it should always have been and hopefully will be from now on.

M
onday June 26 2006 was a red letter day by anyone’s standards. It was my birthday and I could easily think of other places I would rather have been, but here I was again, hoping that it would be the last time I would appear in court on this issue; my application for an annulment to my marriage. It was like something you’d see in a movie. For years Barbara and her solicitors had pursued me for maintenance, and thus, an admission of sorts that a valid marriage had existed, but I was resolute that that was not the case and for several very good reasons.

Barbara delayed a hearing for my nullity application for years and put me through several discoveries, which were not granted by the courts. I had given seven years of accounts and yet still they pursued me and tried to stall the hearing for my application. They were relentless in their efforts to pursue a judicial separation, and I was equally adamant that I wanted an annulment. It was heartbreaking to think that after all that she had put me through, she could get away with this too. However, I was determined to see this through, even if I had to do it myself. Thankfully, I didn’t.

In March of 2006 I was informed by my solicitor that I would have to prepare yet another Affidavit of Means. I was distraught and went into a complete tiz.
Here we bloody well go again
. It was really hard to take and there were times when it crossed my mind to go the judicial separation route, but I was determined to see this through to the end. I had always felt that right was on my side. I was unshakable in my conviction, even though it would have been far easier to get a divorce. But, as much as I hated having to admit it, I knew that I was never truly married and I needed vindication after all the lies and bad treatment.

In February 2005 I had written to my solicitor to inform him of my diagnosis and my decision to go ahead with gender reassignment. He told me that this would affect my application for nullity and that I would need confirmation from Dr Lucey by way of a report for the court. So, I returned to see Dr Lucey for another assessment as his office has misplaced my original evaluation. During the meeting he made it clear how impressed he was with my transformation since the last time he had met me.

On the day of my court hearing I arrived as Sara. I was as nervous as could be and just wanted the case to be heard and get out of there as quickly as possible. I felt extremely self-conscious and vulnerable as this was the first time my legal team were meeting me as Sara, as would Barbara and her legal guardian and legal team, not to mention the judge and everyone else in the courtroom. I sat in one of the consultation rooms with the court-appointed psychiatrist, Dr Draper, and we were left hanging around waiting for Barbara to arrive, only to be told that she wasn’t coming and that the hearing would not now go ahead. I was livid and at the same time plunged into more despair. I was convinced that this
was going to go on forever. I was so dejected returning to Cork, but I had to pick myself up and keep going; not an easy thing to do, but do it I must.

However, there was one positive thing to come out of these events and that was receiving the reports from Dr Lucey and Dr Draper. Bearing in mind everything I’d been through and all the stigma, bullying and abuse I had been exposed to over my lifetime as a result of being branded a mental retard and a freak, their reports would have a profound impact upon me.

Dr Draper wrote:

Dr Lucey wrote:

In a nutshell, I am a perfectly normal woman who happens to be tall and attractive and, I did not have a valid marriage contract. But most importantly of all for me, I am not, nor ever have been, a
mental retard
. I had to wait forty years to see this in writing and I’ve cried many tears over those words. It would have been nice had my mother just said, ‘Sara, I’m sorry for letting on that you were mentally retarded.’ She never did and she never will, but my psychiatrists did and put it in writing for the court to see

On 26 June 2006, my birthday, twenty-five years of unmitigated marital misery were to end after just twenty minutes in court. After all the delays, I was told on the Friday before the court hearing that they were prepared to withdraw their objections to my application for nullity.

And so it was that my case finally got underway with Dr Draper being called to the witness box. Before he was called, the judge questioned why I’d changed my name to Cromwell; to which my barrister responded that it was my right to choose whatever name I liked and that the court was bound to accept it. The judge was quick to assure my barrister that he was not commenting one way or the other, that he was just curious about the name. The hearing proceeded and Dr Draper was called as a witness. I was genuinely shocked to learn of his credentials and to realise that I had such an esteemed witness giving evidence on my behalf.

The judge asked him if I could simply say I was gender dysphoric for the purposes of getting an annulment, then revert to being a male afterwards? Dr Draper could not have been more emphatic in his response: he made it absolutely clear that my condition was medical, that it was a prenatal condition and that it could not be cured. The judge was completely satisfied and said that he was prepared to grant my application, providing there was no objection from Barbara’s legal counsel. She stood up and said that there was no objection and that there were no other applications before the court; with that the judge declared that the marriage was annulled.

It is very difficult to describe how I felt at that moment. Here I was, Sara Cromwell, whose name had just been changed by Deed Poll, who had only been living six months full-time as a woman, experiencing serious financial difficulties and trying to cope with the daily trials of starting a whole new life, and being single into the bargain. I could only wonder what kind of a life awaited me when I left that courtroom for the last time.

T
here was never a single doubt in my heart and mind about making a public disclosure of my condition. Was I afraid? Absolutely; actually, afraid doesn’t cover it; I was genuinely terrified. Such a disclosure could easily blow up in my face. There was a lot to lose if it went wrong, but there was so much more to lose if I didn’t tell the truth. Hiding away was never going to be a long-term option for me. Yes, there were a great many days when I hid behind my front door and was afraid to go out, but I used those occasions to work through my fears and then step out once and for all. It occurred to me that some real good might come of all this and that there was no other Irish person in mainstream society who was doing what I was about to do. There were some who were doing it on the fringes, but that is not where I and many like me wanted to live, so someone had to do it if we ever to get our medical condition out there and to stop apologising for it. So rather than ask the usual question:
why me?
I chose to ask another question: why not me? and why should I leave it to someone else to speak up for me? It really was that simple for me.

Even before I had received my diagnosis, I was fully aware of society’s ignorance of gender identity disorder and the
treatment of those struggling to live according to their true gender identity. I was aware of the fact that sensationalist
TV
shows and tabloid newspapers portrayed such people as a bunch of freaks and ultimately reinforced the confusion and prejudice that surrounds this medical condition.

I knew all this before I was diagnosed and before I chose to proceed with my gender reassignment. I was aware of the accusations of deceit and selfishness made about those of us who try to live as we were meant to live; normal lives within our families, places of work, communities and within society as a whole, but in their true gender. I was also aware of how some families could be more concerned about their own embarrassment than about doing the right thing by those they professed to love. They find it hard to understand and accept that
GID
is a congenital condition, affecting the brain and that a person with
GID
simply cannot reconfigure their brain structure and psychological make-up to conform to their body. And this really is the simple truth of the matter. To quote Prof. Louis Gooren: ‘It is the body that has to change in order to match the imprinted gender identity.’ There is simply no other way around this, unless one wants to live in a state of interminable and intolerable conflict with one’s self and with everyone else. I have chosen to live my life freely, and not to hide who I am and who I was meant to be.

It is against this background and the fact that there was no support organisation of any kind to help people with
GID
that I felt I had to go public with my condition, in the hope that the truth of my situation would help me through my own transition and would also help those coming after me. There are large numbers of people with gender identity disorder who, like I did, suffer deep distress and depression and many have either seriously considered or tried to commit suicide.

In March 2004 I moved into my new home in Midleton. I can still remember the overwhelming sense of dread I felt. Kathy was happy to live in this area of the town, but I now had to face into my transition in a neighbourhood in which I knew no-one and there were lots of children and teenagers about. Moving outside of town was my preferred option because of the highly sensitive, and to be brutally honest about it, the terrifying, prospect of transitioning towards my true gender. I wanted to live somewhere that would allow me to come and go quietly without attracting the possible ridicule and judgmentalism that others in my situation were experiencing at that time. It seemed an entirely reasonable strategy to adopt. But, no sooner had I committed to the move than I received my wake-up call:
Jesus, what am I going to do now about my transition?
I found myself in a dilemma and needed to work it out fairly quickly.