I was born Henry Neil Whitehead, but in 2007 my wife and soulmate passed away, and my life would change forever. It was the beginning of an emotional and complex transition. I am Lynda Whitehead, and I am transgender. Copyright Able 2018 I was with this woman that I loved more than anything in the world, but I was betraying her in some ways. I used to look in the mirror everyday, and I used to hate what I saw. After Jill had died, I was chugging back Prozac, you know, and washing it down with whisky and vodka. My brain was a total scrambled mess. I decided that I didn't want to be around any more. I went outside... to do the deed. I'd learned enough at that stage to realise... that I'd probably been a woman all my life but never really known it. (TAPE REWINDS) (REFLECTIVE PIANO MUSIC) I was born in Preston, Lancashire in 1949. My dad was a trained singer, and my mum played the piano. So, my early days were, sort of, filled with a lot of colour. I remember one night I was watching some television and Shirley Bassey came on. I was probably about 8 years old. I was so taken with this lady and the way she was. You know, she was glamorous. She wore the most incredible gown that just hugged her figure so tightly, and it was covered in sequins, and sort of fishtailed out at the bottom. And she came up to the microphone, and she, sort of, basically, had to walk like this, you know, to get there. And I was totally fascinated with this. And I went to bed that night, and I couldn't get this vision of her out of my head. So, I wriggled out of my pyjama bottoms... and stuck both legs down one leg, and laid there for a while, wriggling around in bed. It was just something that I liked. Just a great feeling. And that wasn't normal. For around about the next 10 years, nothing seemed to happen on this other side of my life, and it may have been the fact that I was going through puberty, and experiencing genuine feelings for women. The other side of it never really came into it. (UPBEAT MUSIC) 1963 ` my parents decided we were going to make the big move to New Zealand. It was just culture shock. 1964 ` we were all attending that international school of learning known locally as Whangarei Boys' High School. And that was the height of the British Invasion, as far as music and fashion and everything went, and if you had a English accent, you were pretty cool. Probably about half way through the year, a couple of boys came to our attention. Neil Whitehead and his brother. Quite short. Small and skinny, but we just thought that was normal for a pom, basically, you know? We had an immediate affinity with these two guys. So we, sort of, tacked them on to our group, and they hung out with us for a long time. Neil and I, as he was then, first probably came across each other at the Whangarei Boys' High School. We were in different classes, but we both had an interest in soccer. (UPBEAT MUSIC) We used to live, really, for the weekends. We'd pool our resources, which was our spending money, in to buy beer. At the time, I hadn't got a driver's licence, and my dad would actually let Ross use his car so that we could go out and pick girls up, or whatever it was. So, we used to pick up our girlfriends, and we would spend two and a half hours rolling around the back of` cos this car inside was huge. I remember Neil, the little head appearing under the backseat as I'm rolling around in the backseat with this young lady. Ah` Oh, I can't even remember her name. Isn't that terrible? And the next morning my dad would be up, and he'd say to me, 'I don't understand why there's foot marks on the inside of the windows.' (PLAYFUL MUSIC) I actually talked to Ross about this. I always liked a little bit of extra purchase. (CHUCKLES) Neil had an incredible amount of luck with the girls. I think part of it was the fact that he had an English accent, cos that was cool, and all the girls loved it. But I think he also... He treated them better than we did. When I went out on dates with girls, they often told me I was different. We were always curious what the rest of us were doing wrong that he was doing right. It just seemed to come naturally to me, because I was treating them in the same way that I would want to be treated, if I was a girl. (GUITAR PLAYS) GIRL: From like, um, about... Neil had started going out with this young lady and she became pregnant. And, of course, the proverbial shit hit the fan over it. I put my hand up and I said, 'Well, look, you know, I'm prepared to stand by her.' We got married in the registry office in Whangarei. And at the same time, I'd secured myself a job in a sign company in Auckland. Dad was really hands-on with me. As a little kid, you know, he was really cool. So, I remember things like... Dad used to play Wings a lot ` you know, Paul McCartney ` and even... I hated that music. But I remember him coming in to my room late at night when I had had an accident in my bed. I had wet my bed. (CHUCKLES) Oh my God. And it was always him that came in, and he'd always put a towel down for me, and he always looked after me, and, yeah, he was always there. I first met Neil in about, I think it was about 1970-71, something like that. We were working in the same place. I found he was a remarkable tradesman. Absolutely amazing. And we just got on really well. We used to go out to the pubs together and have a few beers. To some extent, what was happening inside me, or what was inside me, was in a state of dormancy, and I was extremely good at keeping a secret. When we did go to the pubs, he would never go to the urinal with the other guys. He would always go into a cubicle. And I always thought, 'That's funny. Maybe he's got a really little one,' or whatever. (LAUGHS) (POIGNANT MUSIC) It was only when we'd, sort of, settled down together I started taking more of an interest in her things. Bye, Neil. Bye. (SOLEMN MUSIC) The first time I actually put on women's clothing that I was able to dress quite fully was one afternoon when my wife had gone out. In that moment, if I am to be brutally honest, there was a certain amount of sexual arousal involved in it. And there I was, looking at myself thinking how great I looked, and she came up the driveway. It was a huge panic for me to get all this stuff off and throw some clothes on before she came in the back door. After some years of living and working in Auckland, we decided that what we really wanted was to go back to Whangarei. (REFLECTIVE MUSIC) I'd decided to start a business on my own account. My wife was able to get work as a receptionist for a doctor who had just started a practice in Whangarei. And then, um, one day, she walked in and basically told me the marriage was over and she was leaving me. I was alone, and I was devastated. But I was about to meet the love of my life, and that would lead to the beginning of Lynda. * After hiding my gender issues from my wife for four and a half years, she came home one day and told me she was going to leave me to go and live with the doctor who she'd actually been working for. The doctor's wife, Jill, and I were already good friends, and it transpired that we had a lot of things in common. In fact, uncommonly in common. I realised that I'd found somebody that I could love on a totally different level. Dad and Jill were really incredibly in love, from what I could see. They were like two peas in a pod, basically. Jill would always sit in the same place on the couch, and Dad would come in and he used to sit down on the floor beside her, and have his arm resting on her knees. He did that almost every night. Jill and I had to wait two years before we could get married, and I always remember saying when my final decree came through, 'Well, I'm a single man now. 'You don't think we could delay things a little bit, do you?' (CHUCKLES) She just took one look at me, and she said, 'Listen, fella!' Seems a bit funny, me saying that. She said, 'Listen to me.' She said, 'I've been unmarried and living with you for long enough. 'I think it's about time you made a good and honest woman out of me.' Say hello to mum. I do remember that when we went to Sydney with them, we went and knocked on their door. And it's always stuck in my mind, this, because they were sitting at each end of a window seat and facing each other, and I just had this flash. It was as if they were a couple of sisters or girlfriends exchanging confidences or having a serious talk. I was always fascinated with what Jill wore. She always dressed absolutely beautifully, and there were lots of times, when I was in the house on my own, I would try on some of her things. It's a funny thing, but what had been a sexual thing subsided, and what became more of a gender issue started to increase. It was very difficult being me. On the one hand, you know, I was with this woman that I loved more than anything in the world, and on the other I felt as though I was betraying her in some ways. The conflict within me was huge. I really think that my dad was terribly unhappy, because, in hindsight, he knew that he was transgender from the age of 8, and I guess that having to push it down for so long, and he couldn't express himself the way he really wanted to. He tried to be the best dad, the best husband, the best friend, the best bloke that he could be under the circumstances. I think that he drank a lot to try and supress his feelings. What was happening to me internally and my growing concern over alcohol was almost running side by side. I had terrible anger management concerns. I wasn't a particularly nice person. It came to a head, basically, around Christmastime. (DRAMATIC MUSIC) Fuck you, Dad. 'Dad had been drinking.' I'm not quite sure what led up to it, but I ended up telling him to get fucked. At that point, it was decided that I'd go and live with my mother. A lot of my anger, strangely enough, was internal. It was actually anger at myself. I used to look in the mirror every day, and I used to hate what I saw. It got to that point where one night, with a fair amount of Dutch courage, I... needed to come out and tell her everything. I have no idea how I'm gonna say this. I don't know how... Her reaction was, 'So let me get this straight ` you want to put a dress on? 'And what about make-up?' 'Yeah, I'd really want to do that as well.' 'I just don't know what to do.' 'So, you want to do this whole thing?' And I said, 'Yeah.' And at that point she got extremely upset. And I thought to myself, you know, 'This could be the end of my marriage. This could be the end of it.' I don't want to lose you, but... I need your help. And I said, you know, 'I've not changed. 'I'm still that person that you fell in love with... 'all those years ago.' I still love you. And she said to me, 'Well, OK. 'If you feel that this is what you need to do, I'll support you.' Oh, well, if you want to do this, I... I've got some rules. (SNIFFLES) 'The first rule is if you're gonna get dressed up, 'you're to dress for your age. 'No miniskirts, fishnet stockings, platform heels. None of that. 'Second rule, I only want you doing this two or three times a week.' And she said, 'And while we're talking about it, 'my next rule is that it's got to be kept a secret. 'It's just got to be between you and I.' I think that all I did was transfer the weight off my shoulders and plonk it on to hers. And I have` I deeply regret that. Somehow we were going to have to figure out how to keep this thing secret, and it wasn't going to be easy for either one of us. * After 10 years of secretly dressing in female clothes, I finally told Jill. We'd agreed that every Tuesday and Thursday, I'd go into the bedroom, I'd get changed, throw some make-up on, put my hair on, and then I would go into the office and I would work away in the office. It came out brilliantly. I have to say that I wanted to go out there and shout to the world, 'This is me. Look at me. 'This is really me.' We were married for over 30 years, and for 18 of those years, she helped me keep my secret from the world. But in late 2006, Jill became sick. My father rung me. Neil rung me and said, 'Look, you know, the doctor's left a note on the door 'saying that Jill needs to get to hospital; she's got kidney stones.' The surgeon said, 'I'm sorry to tell you, but I've encountered a massive carcinoma in there.' I just, sort of, said, 'What do you mean ` like cancer sort of thing?' He said, 'Yes, I'm afraid so.' He said, 'It's not very good.' I said, 'Excuse me, are you telling me that Jill's going to die?' He said, 'I'm afraid so.' I got a phone call on a Sunday morning. And it was my nana. And she said that she's gone. (SOBS) Don't leave. As I was holding her hand,... she stopped breathing. And... (SNIFFLES) she died. And Neil died. SOFTLY: I could spend the rest of my life flying around this world, and I will never meet anybody like her again. (LAUGHTER) It was four weeks and four days from them operating and then just deciding there's nothing they could do, and that she passed away. The sadness in the air was like rain. It was just terrible. Neil said, 'Life for me without Jill has absolutely no meaning.' I'd started drinking again, and I'd started drinking seriously this time. I was chugging back Prozac, you know, and washing it down with whisky and vodka. I was at the bottom of a 44 gallon drum, you know, and somebody had slammed the lid on it. There was nobody to love me, and I felt unwanted. I was actually still trying to find myself as Lynda the woman. My brain was a total scrambled mess. I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't know who I wanted to be with. And I went on to some dating sites. And one night, I let a guy in the door who I thought was OK. And he wasn't really. (SOBS) I asked him to stop what he was doing, and there was no way he was going to stop. And I'm glad I was drunk. I'm glad I was drunk, because if I hadn't of been, I would have been in a world of pain, because I certainly was the next day. After a good` a full day of drinking on and off, I got to a point late in the afternoon where I decided that I didn't want to be around any more. And, um,... I went outside to, um,... do the deed. My dog followed me out, and as I was about to end it all, I looked down and I saw my dog looking up at me, and I know this sounds silly, but I couldn't do it. I realised in that moment that something else out there depended on me... and that I'd always thought that I depended on somebody else. We were working together, and he was just getting very, very depressed all the time. And I knew which doctor he was going to, so I rung the doctor up and spoke to him. And just at that time, Lynda` well, Neil turned up and he said, 'Who are you`?' I was standing on the footpath, and he says, 'Oh, who are you talking to?' I was trying to fob him off, and then the doctor realised that he had turned up, so he said, 'I want you to put him on. Can you put him on for me?' I said, 'Oh, this is going to make me look really silly here.' So I did, and he spoke to him, and Neil has never said anything to me about it, about what a rotten thing it was that I did or anything like that. I was incredibly humbled when he rang my doctor ` to think that he actually cared that much about me. I'd had a morning of drinking. I'd passed out on the bed at about lunchtime. I woke up at about 2 o'clock and thought, 'Well, I think I'll take my dog, Jess, to the river, 'rather than get straight back into it.' I was pretty drunk, and I'd just got to the top of the crest, and there was a police sting happening. He rung me up and said, 'Have you had a drink?' This is a Saturday morning. I said, 'No, of course I haven't.' He said, 'Well, can you come down and pick my car up?' The police took me home, and I went inside, and there was about that much whisky left in the bottle. I knocked the top off, and I downed it, and I thought to myself, 'What am I gonna do now? 'Do I carry on and die? Or do I do something about it?' And that was his turning point for the alcoholism. He just stopped like that. I'd been sober about a year when I started to ask myself some very serious questions about my life going forward. I had learned enough at that stage to realise that I'd probably been a woman all my life but never really known it. And I asked myself one simple question. 'When are you happy? 'When are you happy?' And the answer came back. 'When I was Lynda.' It was the start of my transition as Lynda, and I was going to introduce her to everyone. * (SOFT PIANO MUSIC) 'Transition' is just a term that we use when we decide that we're going to live our lives authentically in the gender that we should have always been. What it meant for me was a lot of planning. I went out for the first time ever, fully dressed, with a friend who was a cross-dresser. My heart was pounding away; I thought it was going to jump out of my rib cage. But it was exhilarating. I was free. I wanted to introduce her to everyone. (TRIUMPHANT MUSIC) I need to tell you that before I transitioned, I told my mother what I was going to do. (TAPE REWINDS) After Jill had died, I started to think to myself, 'Somebody else has got to know.' And I was sitting there one night with my mum, and I said to her, 'I want to tell you something about me.' And so I told her. I said, 'Do you want to see what I look like?' And my mother is renowned for underreacting. She said (FALSETTO), 'Oh, OK.' So I toodled off to the bedroom. I put some make-up on, got dressed, put some make-up on, put a wig on. I came out and said, 'There you go.' 'Oh, very nice.' That's my mother's reaction. 'Very nice.' So, I spent the night like that with my mum. She said to me, 'Whatever you do, don't tell Rata, 'because if you do, she can't keep a secret,' sort of thing. Forgive me, Rata. And... I did. I told her. At around 2008, I was living out at Ngunguru, and I was talking on the phone, and Dad said to me, 'Go to your computer.' So I went to my computer. He said, 'I've just sent you an email ` a photo.' And I opened up my email, and there's this... a woman. A photo of a woman. And... 'Yeah. And...?' 'Well, look closely.' And I went, 'Oh, goodness. Um, that looks like my dad.' And it was. I just thought... '(GASPS) No.' I had no inkling. I had no inkling whatsoever. No... Not at all. I don't know, but I don't believe that you can tell somebody something, really, and expect them to keep it a secret, because you're dumping something on them. No. I did not keep it a secret. Um, I was... very naughty, actually, and I felt that I just needed to let it out. Rata said to Murray, 'Do you`? Are you aware of the fact that Neil is,...' and the terminology she used at the time, '...is a cross-dresser?' I started then to tell people. The first time that we found out from Neil, or Lynda, she came in and sat down and said, 'I've been agonising over this. 'I'm not sure how I can tell you this and how you're going to react to it.' And, you know, 'Have you got any inkling of what I'm going to say?' And I said, 'Yeah, you're probably gonna tell me you're a cross-dresser.' (LAUGHS) And a little bit of relief came over his face, but not a huge amount. And then he proceeded, or she proceeded, to tell us the full story, basically. Um, and... I just said, 'Well, you know, you've been a mate for a long time, 'and if that's what you wanna do, it's your decision. 'And that's what you wanna do, and, yeah, it's gonna be interesting.' I had spoken to her on the phone on the phone a couple of times, and she had said to me, 'Look, Neil doesn't exist any longer.' I walked up and I just knocked on the door then opened the door, and because she's quite theatrical in her mannerisms, she goes like this ` 'What do you think?' Well, it` it was a strange thing. The instinctive thing was to step forward and embrace her. To shake hands would have been cynical, I think. Robyn was reading a magazine, and she said, 'Come and have a look at this.' And I said, 'I don't read girly magazines.' When I came across the article in the magazine, it was disbelief. She said, 'No, no, you need to come and have a look at this.' So I had a look at it and I said, 'Oh yeah, OK.' 'No, no, you need to come and have a look at this.' When he did read it he said, 'Well, um, that's a bit different,' and walked off. The last person that I told that was on my list to tick off was my friend Garry. I was petrified that I'd lose his friendship. He came here one day and he said, 'Oh, I need to talk to you about something.' And I said, 'Oh yeah. Sounds ominous. What's this?' And he said, 'I haven't told you. Everybody else knows,' but he said, 'You're the most heterosexual man I know. 'So you're the last to know, and I'm gonna tell you.' 'I'm transgender. I'm gonna transition. 'I'm a trans woman, Garry.' Silence. My first thoughts were that, um, he's mad. I mean, I know that he'd just gone through a lot of drama with his alcoholism, and he was definitely getting over it. He wasn't drinking. I thought, 'Maybe he's just taken on something else to be a bit weird about.' I said, 'I don't expect you to like what I am, 'and I don't expect you to agree with what I am. 'But do you think that you can please find it in your heart to accept what I am?' And he, sort of, turned around and looked at me and said,... 'Yeah, I guess so.' (CHUCKLES) I remember quite vividly, when I first met Lynda, he drove up here and I thought, 'Oh, that looks like Neil's car,' and this woman got out of it. And I thought, 'Oh, it's a customer,' as you would. And I went up, 'Can I help you?' He says, 'Garry, it's me.' I'm went, 'Whoa! You beauty!' (LAUGHS) Never seen anything like it in my life. I just did not recognize him. It speaks volumes for my friends ` for Garry,... Murray and Ross ` and doesn't say a heck of a lot for me that I wasn't prepared to trust their friendship and love for me. The more and more I started living my life as me, as who I should be, I started to seriously think about hormone replacement therapy. * When Lynda came in, my role was to assess her for hormones. She was already` had been wearing female clothing for a year. She had done the occupational things, like changing her name by deed poll. She had changed her work card with a different name. Um, she was determined to be fit and was running to work with a pack on her back to lose weight. She had stopped drinking. She was self-employed. She was a woman who had come through a great deal in her life with a lot of courage. She diagnosed me, there and then, as having gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria, the term, refers to an identity that is different from the identity that you're born with. In a lot of ways, it was a great relief to me, because I'd wondered all my life what was wrong with me, you know? Suddenly it was all explained. So I referred her to an endrocrinologist for hormones. It's giving me what my body can't. Slower hair growth. Nice skin tone. It's given me emotions that I didn't think I could have. The other thing that's changed a lot in me is my sexuality. With a lot of trans people, they go through transition, they start to live their lives, you know, being true to themselves. Their sexuality doesn't change. But mine did. Don't ask me how ` I don't know, and I don't know why. With a number of transgender women, after they've been on HRT for a couple of years, they can usually expect to get a reasonable amount of breast development, and I was getting some development, but it was not particularly outstanding, and, um, I went to see my endocrinologist, and I said to him, 'I want to get augmentation.' When I went to Auckland, Rata came down from Whangarei. She looked after me. I went to Auckland, and I met Lynda at the airport, and we went back to a hotel, a motel room. And we had the most amazing, funny night. We had, like, a pyjama party. And the whole time we were there, we just talked and talked and talked and laughed and laughed. And when I went to drop her at the airport, four days later, I was driving along the motorway and I realised what an amazing woman she is. For many transgender people, um, gender reassignment surgery is vital. It's absolutely vital to them. With me ` not so vital. I don't think gender reassignment surgery is going to make me feel any more of a woman than how I feel right here, right now. I am a transgender woman, and I accept that, and I'm happy to be this. In fact, I'm extremely proud of who I am. Can everybody hear me OK? Tena koutou, and welcome. My name is Lynda Whitehead, and I am spokeswoman for Tranzaction Christchurch. I would like to start by thanking each and every one of you for coming along this evening to join with us to remember and reflect on all those trans folk who have lost their lives in the last 12 months. Trans day of remembrance, it's a once-a-year thing, and it's` it was created so that trans people could come together and remember and commemorate all those who have died in the trans community worldwide. Transgender folk make up to 1.5% of the world's population, yet are 400 times more likely to be assaulted or murdered, and many of these crimes remain unsolved. Transgender people live in a hostile society. Some societies are more hostile than New Zealand society, but most societies in the western world don't really accept transgender people. It is vitally important that we remember those we have lost. I would now like to ask that we observe a minute's silence so that we may think, pray or meditate on those we have lost. True, some people have no problem at all, and some people are quite accepting, but many people have quite negative reactions to it. I think that having transitioned has worked against me in some areas. I believe, definitely, that he's had trouble through his business, that he's lost work because of it. Her biggest customer completely cut her off at the knees by some rather cruel individual who didn't want to be associated with Lynda Whitehead. And I think with that went probably 80% of her business. Working with Lynda now is absolutely no different to what it used to be. She is still an exceptional tradesperson, and I wish other people could see that. I think Neil was a very angry man. I think he was a man that lived with a lot of fear in his life. I think he was a man that lived with terrible self-esteem. Lynda is a happier soul than Neil ever was. Neil seemed to me to be an introvert, whereas Lynda is very much out there, very extroverted. Quite a remarkable difference. I don't know whether Lynda would have fully appeared if Jill hadn't died. Yeah. I don't think` While Jill was there, Lynda would have been kept in a compartment. I think Lynda will probably struggle for a while still getting everybody` I mean, there's old people like me around whose first thought is, 'He, Neil.' And even in evenings out we've had, I sometimes fall in that trap. So, in that sense, life may be a bit difficult because there will be people like me appearing to insult Lynda when it's not intentional; it's just ingrained. Now that I've gotten to know Lynda as Lynda, I just hope she finds happiness to the degree that she needs to sustain herself for the next 20-odd years that she's on this earth. There's little bits of Neil that come out of Dad that come out sometimes just on the odd occasion, especially with her facial expressions and things. But Neil has gone, and that's fine. But in replacement, I've got Lynda. She is still my mentor. She is still my supporter. Um, we share jeans, which I think is (SOBS) absolutely fantastic. And I... Our relationship is so unique, and she's like my best, best friend. More than that. I am Lynda Whitehead, and I'm transgender. Captions by Ella Wheeler. Edited by Jake Ebdale. www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2018