It is official and I finally feel free of all inhibitions to talk openly with you: readers of the present and the future!
Hello, my name is Rory, a transgender female born into the body of a Scotsman in the last decade of the 20th Century. For years, like so many, I struggled with the skin I was in.
I couldn't understand why I never fitted in with other boys. Why despite definitely not being gay, post-puberty I was attracted to men. Why my poetic sensabilities were so forthcoming whilst my physical abilities as a drummer were so limited. Why my spatial awareness was so impaired. Why I craved peace not war...
I was always physically weaker than other boys. Mercilessly bullied for my "strange ways" throughout childhood and the majority of my twenties. I always loved cooking, sewing and bright colours. Always far more conscious of bodily and household cleanliness than seemed normal for a man. A truly torturous existence I lived. Until it all became clear.
I was raised in Thurso on the northern tip of Scotland, by my father. He always despised me and despite having encouraged me to take up the snare drum (the drum corps youth regiment was supposedly the easiest way to get into the army) he later decried me using those skills for rock and roll. Telling me music would lead to no good, I - then a teenage boy - ignored his warnings and went searching for fame and fortune as drummer and songwriter in an English rock trio (pah, the stupidity of
man!) Father ultimately proved correct.
Upon returning to his abode several years back, I received the worst physical and verbal beatings I have ever experienced. I do not wish to call him out on these. They were for the best. They were what I needed. They led to the woman I am today. He always told me I was a "walloper" who needed "t' grow a set a' baws". "Yer a' gurl" had been his mantra my entire life and it was during a particularly gruelling fist-attack that his message finally hit home, so to speak.
Thanks to my amazing friends in the Thurso Wicca community who opened up my spiritual side consequently enabling me to engage in a deep understanding and acceptance of myself, that nascent thought "
perhaps you are a girl?" took its course. By the time I moved to Cumbernauld a couple of years on, I was well and truly on course to being the independent woman who stands before you today. (Or should that be "sits before you today"?
Ho ho!)
Perhaps if it wasn't for the gradually ever-more enlightened age we're living in, I'd have never realised I was a woman born into the body of a man. It is only looking back with hindsight on my previous life that events make sense. Puberty was particularly confusing for me. Thinking at the time I was supposed to be a man, it was very awkward when, as late as my twentith birthday, my testicles still hadn't dropped. Of course my body was attempting the unnatural! Eventually the testes were medically coaxed out by a doctor who queried the small nubbin of shaft and (comparatively) large bulb that was my 'todger' [Yorkshire term I picked up meaning
penis]. I was severely teased by a couple of work colleagues (not mentioning any names) over many years that it looked more like a "large clit" [they however used a more vulgar phrase that - as a woman - I find incredibly offensive] than true male anatomy. Medically I was catagorised as suffering from the condition
parva ipsum colem. I'm 100% convinced these issues and every other I ever experienced were all down to the fact my body was perpetually in an unnatural state.
We take technology for granted but it is scary to think that without the internet I would most likely not have been able to self-diagnose my transgender state. Would know nothing about my heroes Chelsea Manning, Jenna Talackova and Caitlyn Jenner, and very possibly have struggled on as an inadequate, confused man - no doubt committing suicide as (at best) a middle-aged drunkard. It is to the brave global transgender community I owe my life alongside Mother Earth, the Universal Goddesses of Truth, Forgiveness and Awareness and my Wiccan friends across Scotland and elsewhere (you know who you are!)
So it is now October 2017.
Ten months have passed since my acceptance of womanhood and by deed poll successfully my name and gender has been corrected. I have been on hormone therapy but my body hasn't taken too well to it thus far and there have been some frankly groteseque side-effects which led me to quit work before summer and continue to leave me mostly housebound. At least for the time being! That infinitely-deep well of faith keeps me positive.
To fans of my music, I am aware changing surname could entail confusion but I feel to truly enjoy the newly found emanicipation I must escape from a family name I have always disliked, both for its enunciation and evocation of buttocks. (One may have assumed I would take up my sometime pseudonym "McBrute" but this again is a brutal masculine sounding name I no longer wish to be associated with.) I will be updating all my promo pictures when I am healthy enough to do so and although the pitch of my voice has yet to change significantly, as it regains its true femininity I may just have one or two more songs in me yet! ;)
McBee was the nickname bestowed upon me by
High Priestess Nigella S. Thringe during my first visit to Stromness in 2014 and in light of her tragic, unexpected passing last year, I thought I would honour her by making it my official surname. The fact
Rory is a
gender-neutral name explains why subconciously I've always liked it and
felt like a 'Rory'.
Kaitlyn on the other hand is both tribute to my favourite female wrestler and aforementioned Ms Jenner - whilst keeping the 'K' of my birth initials intact. Changing initials seemed quite honestly a step too far!
How am I finding life as a woman? So far so good! Mentally at least. Physically quite the opposite but it is very early days. I have at least joined up with the feminist society in Cumbernauld and next week hope to take part in the protest to put an end to ALL discrimination. It is the 21st Century, when will men learn their place? We women are not only going to show the
chauvinist male pigs that
we exist but (in the words of the
Queen herself) "we rule the world"!*
We transgender females may yet not be fully accepted in Cumbernauld but we continue to fight the good fight of awareness and understanding (peacefully of course). If any of you have questions or doubts about your own transgender issues do contact me. I will be shortly publishing on this site my poetry as a woman - and in true humbleness I say it is FAR greater than anything conceived before my awakening - alongside more frequent updates about my new life.
And how to end this momentous update? A short prayer of course;
Mother Earth,
High Priestess Universe
I am born again.
Semblance in truth,
Femininity unbounded
You create and protect.
Womanhood creates,
And is life
So praise her.
In peace
I love you all,
R x
* To my wiccan sisters: like you I *do* condemn Beyoncé's bourgoise message but can't deny I find her lyrics empowering. I am speaking as a poet alongside a fan of music.
