Becoming Myself: The True Story of Thomas Who Became Sara (9 page)

I had very few opportunities, if any, to dress during my teens and that caused me much distress. The truth is that I felt like a complete freak living in a boy’s body. Others never noticed, due to my ability to
act
the teenage boy, but I certainly felt that there was nothing about me that fit into the society in which I was raised.

As I watched all these changes in my body and realised that there was nothing I could do about them, I became terribly
sad and depressed. I felt completely helpless, with not a single soul to turn to. The best I could hope for was that it would in some miraculous way change of its own accord; of course it never did. So, I tried to deal with it as best I could and spent a lot of time making sure I was properly groomed, especially when attending social occasions. It is ironic that this was the one thing about which my mother was most complimentary!

There is no getting away from the fact that I felt utterly cheated, but helpless to do anything about my situation. This was made so much worse by not being able to tell anyone about what I was going through. It was bad enough that I was already being bullied for being left-handed, tall, for reading books, and working with the Peace Corps and for being ‘retarded’. So, imagine my difficulty even thinking about the fact that I felt I was a girl living in a boy’s body! It just didn’t bear thinking about, and so I really tried not to and just got on with being the best teenage
boy
that I could be. It didn’t work.

It was during my early teens — thirteen to fourteen, to be precise, that I first bought my own clothes. I remember my first ever suit, which I bought in Weavers to Wearer in Henry Street. Even from that age I loved shopping, even if it meant getting into debt to do it. My mother’s response to my complaints about my low wages was to give me ‘credit notes’, which took the urgency out of giving me a proper wage.

The downside to shopping was that I couldn’t go to the boutiques, which was where I really wanted to shop. It was the greatest strain trying to walk past all those beautiful clothes and shoes. Sometimes, I was mentally exhausted from the effort.

I tried to find a way to buy clothes that would look and feel feminine but would not give the game away, so I bought orange, pink and purple round-collared shirts and flared pants with stripes running down the legs. I even tried to buy unisex nylon underwear that at least looked like it could be worn by girls.

Nonetheless, despite my best efforts, I was unable to act in the same way as my brothers and other boys my age. For example, I simply could not identify in any way with the manner in which boys treated girls, especially their vulgarity and rudeness; the way they would speak of ‘touching them up’ and ‘dropping the hand’. Just listening to them made me sick, and it didn’t go unnoticed. At least some of my brothers and sisters were curious about this, and reminded me of this after hearing of my later diagnosis. They were also curious about my difficulties in chatting up girls and the way that I became increasingly withdrawn. Some of them called me a cissy and some wanted to know if I was ‘queer’. Interestingly, they would also attribute my search for spiritual answers as a search for my true self. Strange how they could recognise this truth, yet treat me so badly at the same time.

I was particularly revolted by the way they spoke about girls having their periods and referring to them as having their ‘flowers’. If a girl did not want to dance or go on a date she would be called a ‘homo’ or a ‘lezzer’! And if she was having a bad day she was said to be ‘in her rags’. These were common insults used against girls who spoke up for themselves or who were having a bad time. Other comments would be made about girls developing breasts.

My own brothers teased my sisters quite a bit and it made me extremely angry, though whenever I spoke out against them speaking that way, they, along with my mother, would
tell me to shut up and mind my own business. But there can be no doubt that these comments did hurt my sisters, despite their best efforts to laugh them off. Some of them admitted as much to me years later.

I really did identify with them but was completely excluded from their company, especially when they were hanging out together. I so wanted to be a part of their group. I was very tuned into my sisters’ feelings whenever they were having boyfriend problems and some of them would confide in me, one sister in particular. And yet we never really became close. This was impossible given their need to be accepted by their mother, and it was her disapproval of me that, I believe, ensured we would never be close. This remains one of the greatest sadnesses of my life. Whatever about the estrangement I feel from my brothers, not having a relationship with my sisters is infinitely worse; at times I would love to share things with them, or to be able to meet up for coffee or lunch.

It was also during my teens that I decided to do something about my lack of education and the fact that I was semi-literate at best. It had bothered me for such a long time that I wasn’t allowed to finish school and that I could barely read or write. I determined to prove to the people who had branded me a retard and stupid that I was just as normal as they were. This has been the second dominant motivation of my life apart from trying to allow Sara the right to live as nature intended. It was a huge mountain to climb but I was determined to climb it. I was resolved to teach myself to read and write and embarked on a journey that I’ve been on ever since. I love learning new things, new words, new insights; anything that enhances my understanding of life and the world around me.

Because I felt I was so far behind everyone else, I thought I would have to read books at a much higher level than primary school, so I started to buy books that were at university level. This filled me with trepidation but I was convinced that there was no other option. Along with reading was the need to have good handwriting, so I practised my handwriting every day and looked for reasons to write things down, especially taking notes and writing letters. I got down to some serious reading with books on psychology, sociology, history etc. It was really hard but I was determined. No sooner had I started reading, than I realised I had a very poor vocabulary and that I wasn’t making much progress because I wasn’t able to understand a lot of the words I was reading, so I bought my first ever dictionary and thesaurus. Every time I came to a word I could not understand, I would go to the dictionary and, once I found the correct definition, would write it in the margin of the book and run a line under the sentence so that I could refer to it whenever that word occurred elsewhere in the book. This is how I learned the importance of understanding things in their context. I would then use the words I had learnt in my everyday conversation. Once I got the hang of reading, I then started to develop a love for studying and learning new things and it has been one of my passions ever since.

I began to expand my reading interests and started to read more literature and developed a great liking for period dramas and documentaries and later in my teens I developed a love of classical music. This was a very unusual thing for someone my age to do, but it never occurred to me at the time and was another of the reasons offered by my siblings for finding me ‘weird’. I was damned if I wasn’t educated and damned if I was; a no-win situation. But it has held me in
good stead ever since. Being self-educated went a long way towards helping me to become a good conversationalist and a good socialiser. Burying myself in learning and music helped me to suppress my conflict with my gender identity even further, but not so much that I could hide my very girl-like emotions, especially my crying at romantic films and sad situations.

By now, it was 1976 and I was sixteen years old, desperate to escape from my pain, feeling misunderstood by my family and colleagues, and increasingly disconnected from my true self. My life had barely even started and I now began to think about trying to end it. I felt that I didn’t belong to anyone and I didn’t belong anywhere. I felt as if I was staring into a hole and seeing nothing but perpetual darkness. The most obvious thing to do, it seemed, was to remove myself from this life, and from being the inconvenience my family seemed to feel me to be. So I tried. One night, I went to the canal bridge on the Kylemore Road. I hauled myself up onto the railing over the canal, and leaned over, staring into the black water below. All I needed to do was to jump. I was just seconds away from that final leap of faith, when something stopped me. It suddenly occurred to me that there might be another way. It was a long shot, but it might just work. What if I left home and changed my name, so I couldn’t be found? The very thought of it was enough to make me change my mind. Yes, that’s what I’ll do, I thought. I’ll leave home and change my name. I didn’t know how to do either, but at that pivotal moment it was enough to give me a reason to go on living.

Having made that decision, I immediately tried to imagine a life away from my family and how best to achieve this. The
idea alone gave me some sense of control over my life — a feeling I had never had until this time. It felt truly liberating. I walked away from the canal bridge that night with an overwhelming sense of joy and determination, resolved to find a more purposeful way of escaping the terrible situation I had been bound to for so many years. It was a fateful decision for another reason, too. I was so focused on breaking free of my family that I didn’t really deal with the issue that would impact on my life even more: my conflicting gender identity. At the time, I believed that my ‘strange feelings’ were due to the situation with my family. So it made sense to me to believe that, if I got away from them, my other problem would eventually resolve itself. It didn’t.

My attempt to break free from my family failed. I tried to find a place to stay but was unsuccessful. I tried the Salvation Army, across from the Royal College of Surgeons and Sarsfield House, but was found unsuitable, so I had to stay put and to find other ways of escaping. After that, my work became my great escape and the
FCA
and religion, and I threw myself into these with single-minded focus. Ultimately, I did what I was expected to do or thought I was expected to do and that was, find a nice girl, settle down and start a family.

At seventeen I joined the
FCA
and stayed there for eighteen months. I felt that it was the ‘right’ thing to do to normalise my life and to help me fit in. In truth, I enjoyed the experience and felt I was serving my country in some way. I was not myself whenever I wore that uniform, and it was a time when I felt respected by others. But I did win the prize for best-dressed soldier several times! Although we were supposed to
wear our trousers tucked into our boots, I wore mine over the top of my boots, as I thought it looked nicer.

I joined the 11th Motor Squadron in McKee Barracks and was in Troop 3; Trooper Thomas Dunne. On the night I signed up I was under age by a few months. I never let on that my father was one of their colleagues and that he had served with them over the years. I hated name-dropping and wanted to get by on my own merits. I attended barracks every Thursday night and learned how to use various kinds of weapons, including the Lee-Enfield, the
FN
and the Gustav. All the weapons were designed for right-handers and, being left-handed, I found it difficult to use some of them, which was a cause of great merriment when I was on the firing range during shooting practice. Some of the officers took bets that I would either not be able to hit my targets or would score very low. In fact, I consistently had above-average scores and in the Gustav practice, I scored the second-highest on the day. Quite an achievement for a left-hander!

We would go on camps to the Glen of Imaal and Gormanstown. And in the summer we went on an annual camp to Longford. I was assigned to work with the cook, who just happened to have a major gripe against the officers because they had lost his discharge papers. He clearly did not believe them and so carried a grudge against them, which he exercised against them on a daily basis, without their ever knowing about it. When he was cooking for the officers, he would take their steaks, throw them on the floor and wipe them across the floor with a filthy mop. He would leave the vegetables in the cupboard to go off for several days before using them and with great relish he would spit phlegm into the teapot. It was utterly disgusting and I didn’t know what to say or do about it.

It was while in Longford that the photograph was taken of me sucking my thumb. I had returned early from a night out at a local pub and had fallen asleep early. The lads came back and found me asleep and sucking my thumb. It was to be another four years before I finally managed to overcome the habit. Sucking my thumb was the only comforter I had when distressed. There was nowhere and no-one to turn to for comfort so I went to sleep sucking my thumb.

I requested a discharge from the
FCA
after I had made my decision to sign up for the priesthood in 1978, but not before I had learned of my being promoted to an
NCO
. I’d requested my discharge before going onto the
NCOS
course as I felt that staying with the army was incompatible with preparing for the priesthood and my ongoing commitment to the Peace Corps, which I was still involved with during my time with the
FCA
. They granted my request and I left the
FCA
in the autumn of 1978. Just weeks before my Nan died.

I had finished my night shift in Weavex and had gone to bed, but I was awoken from my sleep to the sounds of my sisters’ screams: ‘Nana is dead, Nana is dead!’ Nan had just died and my sisters’ words were pounding in my head. I got dressed and went straight down to see Nan. I’d wished I hadn’t. What I saw horrified me. She was lying in my uncle’s arms, her eyes staring in terror at her impending death. My mother had always told us how terrified she was of dying.

That night we held the wake and I stayed up all night looking after my uncles. My uncle Seamus refused to go and see his mother and had to be coaxed up by my other uncles. I told him that he would probably always regret it if he didn’t go up and that it would probably prevent him from getting closure later on. He eventually went up to see her and, as
expected, he fell to pieces. It was strange to see the same uncle who had spat on the ground and said: ‘my mother isn’t worth that spit to me’ now grieving. It was a shocking experience and brought home to me that there were others who were prepared to be brutally honest about their feelings towards their mothers. This was a major taboo at that time, and still is, to a large extent.