What's Love Got to Do with It?

by Jenny Molloy

That was the first day I felt a total release. I let go of my past and understood that what had happened was all in my past. Something, as a result of all those months in therapy and staying clear of alcohol, had caused a huge shift in me.

  Before, I’d believed that to forgive myself and my mum and dad was just a way of letting us all off the hook; that I was condoning everyone’s behaviour. Instead of forgiveness, I carried an iron ball of resentment – and it had stayed with me for all of my adult life. My way of coping and getting through life was to ignore what had happened. The anger in me came out as energy to get on with my life, while the drink shut up the voices inside that wanted to be heard – the voice that belonged to young Hope, that little girl who walked into a police station almost twenty-five years ago. When I stopped drinking, I had to let her out.

  And that was my breakthrough. Even today, people can’t understand how and why I’ve forgiven my parents, but it’s the only way to create peace of mind. That’s what I have now. These days, when I have a flashback, I feel incredibly sad for us as kids, and sad for Mum and Dad.

  The anger isn’t there any more. I’m free.

  JOHNNY/JEMMA

  I begged for and got a job in a clothes shop but had nowhere to live until the clubs opened and I could go home with any random guy that would have me. One night a boy told me about a trust that fostered gay and lesbian people – the carers were all lesbian and gay themselves and, being sixteen years old, I still qualified. So I went to see them and, after about three weeks, I was fostered.

  Matt was in his forties, tall, slightly overweight and had a salt-and-pepper beard. He lived alone in a small three-bedroom house in west London. He’d been involved in charity work for most of his life and seemed nice but I couldn’t bring myself to trust him. I couldn’t see anyone I lived with as not abusing me because that’s all I’d known. Even if I’d been living with Mother Teresa I would have expected her to attack me at some point. Matt knew I was gay and although I was trying to act the tough guy and be all butch, I became obsessed with the expectation of abuse and it reached the point where I was analysing the slightest noise in the house at night, thinking he was coming to get me – any sound was a potential threat and I spent the whole time on alert.

  I was sitting quietly in the bath, bubbles everywhere, and was lying back with my head on the rim, eyes closed, when I heard a noise. I opened my eyes and saw the door opening – I had forgotten to lock it! I screamed as loudly as I could as Matt came through. He retreated instantly at the noise. ‘Oh, jeez, sorry, Johnny,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know you were in there. The house was so quiet I thought you were out.’

  Not long after this, we were in the middle of a brief summer heatwave and I walked into the kitchen when Matt was having his morning coffee and saw he had his top off. I started to shake and I could barely talk as I tried to fight the urge to run away. Instead, I walked out of the house calmly, telling myself that it was OK; Matt had shown me nothing but kindness from the first day. Nothing had happened but still the fear, the desperation, had a strong hold of me.

  I loved fashion and went around London’s fabulous charity shops picking up all sorts of clothes and I dressed in all sorts of styles, from cowboy chic to mod, and Matt would watch my fashion parades as I changed and showed him in front of the mirror what I was wearing. Matt redecorated the house and allowed me to do my own room – I painted the walls turquoise and the floorboards white and neon orange.

  ‘Every day is an adventure with you,’ Matt said, chuckling, when I showed him the finished room. Gradually Matt became part of my life; he took on the role of a dad unconditionally and when I hit the clubs and still wanted to party beyond dawn, Matt would pick me up at 3am and drive me to Trade, a club that opened at 5am on a Sunday, where the party continued. ‘Have you been taking drugs?’ he’d ask and, with saucer eyes on stalks, I always told him, No, of course not. Matt knew, but said nothing. He’d read the Sunday papers and have coffee and breakfast at a nearby cafe until I was ready to go home and sleep. Matt was there for me but he let me be at the same time. As the trust grew, I started to love him as a son loves his father. I was finally enjoying life – I worked in fashion and was making enough money to enjoy the party scene and, for the first time in my life, I had a secure home, somewhere I felt safe with a man who loved me for who I was and nothing more.

  Maybe because of this security I started to really think about living as a girl again. I didn’t think I could live that way in London, after the last time I’d been beaten up, so I looked for a place where people could really be themselves and no one would care.

  The answer, it seemed, was New York.

  Matt came to pick me up from the airport. My friend George was there but I was not.

  ‘Johnny’s staying in New York,’ he told Matt. George was a platonic friend and we’d gone for a holiday but I’d been blown away by that crazy city from the moment we stepped out of the subway and into Manhattan. It was immediately obvious that, here, I could live as a girl and, after managing to get a job that paid cash-in-hand in a shoe shop, I found a small apartment in Queens and started to live as a transsexual. Once I had the job and an address, I managed to extend my visa for six months.

  I called Matt ‘Dad’ now and when he came over to see me I told him. ‘Dad, I want to live as a woman, and here is a place I can do it.’ I went to my bedroom and got changed. After taking a deep breath, I opened the door and braced myself.

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ Matt said. ‘Like Audrey Hepburn.’ It was true. I was petite and beautiful; you never would have thought I had lived most of my life as a man. We ate out that night in Chelsea as father and daughter. I called myself Jemma and, even as we listened to the three-piece jazz band, I told Matt just how much he meant to me and just how much he’d done for me – from being the first person to feed me decent food, to being the first person to let me be truly myself.

  Matt told me my metamorphosis hadn’t come as much of a shock and, now, seeing me as I was, he couldn’t imagine me as anything other than a woman. I cried with happiness. But the freedom to live as a woman in New York came at a price. I wasn’t able to make friends and New York was a lonely place for someone eking out a living on a low wage. But I didn’t want to return home; to do so would have been a failure. I found it harder and harder to cope with the loneliness, though, and started to pluck my hair, an impulsive disorder called trichotillomania. The tension and relief of pulling then plucking was somehow satisfying to me, an instant pain-reward exchange; a quick gratification at any given moment.

  I needed more money and so I tried sex working but it didn’t happen. The men and women selling themselves on the street had incredible bodies and took confidence to a whole other level, while I looked like a crazy person – I’d grown and dyed my hair and fashioned it into dreadlocks, and I’d pierced everything I could. I walked into an alternative kind of club where I asked for a job as a dancer and, after the manager ran his eyes up and down me a few times, he asked me to ‘Show what you got’. So I did and got the job. My freakish good looks worked in my favour this time. My dress became more outlandish, so much so that even in New York people started to pass comment on the subway. Eventually, I grew so lonely and I desperately missed Matt, thousands of miles away, the one person who cared for me. Suddenly, I felt like Matt was ‘Home’. For the first time in my life I was able to call something home without it having horrible connotations. It had taken six months in New York for me to realise this. I got together enough money for a ticket back to London.

  It wasn’t the same. Something had happened to me since going away. In part, I felt like a failure for coming back and I fell into a depression. I took an overdose. The doctors wanted me to talk to a shrink.

  ‘It might help,’ Matt advised when I came home, bone thin, shaking, as if I were ready to crack and fall into a million tiny pieces at any second.

  ‘Your female side is part of a personality disorder,’ the shrink said. ‘I’d like you to take so
me pills to help.’

  These were male hormones, designed to bring out my male side. Even now, it seemed as though the medical profession were determined to force me to be a man and, from a lack of strength or lack of light in the other direction, I went with it. From that moment on, I took drugs every day I could and went out every single night. Sometimes I’d dress as a woman but I’d return home feeling ashamed and would dress up as a boy, go out all butch and pull a man. And all of the time, I kept my eyes out for Simon, searching for him in the clubs and bars of the West End.

  I started to develop a personality disorder; I felt as though there were two of me. I’d ask myself who I was going to be that night and with these two characters pulling me one way, then the other, and with muscles growing and the hormones, I decided that it was time to leave this world in which I could not make myself fit. There was no forcing it and, as much as I loved Dad, I just didn’t have the strength to live.

  By now I had no hope of ever being a woman, my head was shaved and I had big muscles – I couldn’t look more butch. I’d done everything I could to live as a man but my soul belonged to a woman who wouldn’t leave me in peace, and so I decided to travel to Ibiza for one last blast and then, at the end of the holiday, my plan was to overdose myself to oblivion.

  I liked the fact that no one knew me there and the idea of being away from the mess of my life appealed to me. On the first day, I saw a guy selling tickets for snorkelling trips and so I bought one on a whim. The boat trip was already beautiful before we got to the snorkel spot; everything you’d want from Ibiza – the sky was blue, the sun was high but the light wasn’t harsh, just bright enough to make the sea, which was clear, glitter and shimmer, the sandy island was a jaggy rock behind us. Snorkels and flippers on, we dropped into the water. It was like swimming in Evian, it was that clear. Fish were everywhere, paying me no mind. Nothing I could say or do would bother them. What a way to be. After the session was over, I said I wanted to go on the next trip, and it was then I realised that I didn’t want to die. I wanted to be me. I had been through so much, lived so much already. I could be me, I really could. I don’t know if anyone else has ever been left feeling so rejuvenated by a boat ride and a bit of snorkelling; certainly when I saw the young man handing out leaflets for the trip again, my smile was so wide I’m sure he thought I’d fallen head over heels in love with him. From that day, I stopped using drugs.

  Back in the UK, I leapt into another relationship, this time with a wonderful man. When I saw a TV documentary about a transgender person I made sure we watched it; I was ready to tell him afterwards that I was transgender and was going to become a woman but, before I could, he blurted out at the screen: ‘That’s ridiculous! You’re a gay man, live like one.’

  ‘Don’t you think he has a right to be who he feels he is rather than what society dictates?’

  ‘No way, it’s just too fucking weird.’

  ‘Suppose I wanted to do that?’

  ‘You?’ he laughed. ‘You’re way too masculine to pull that off.’

  As much as I liked him, I couldn’t stay with someone who felt like that, so I dumped him. I was walking the streets a short time later when I saw a transgender person selling the Big Issue. I bought one and, flicking through the magazine on the tube, I spotted an ad for drug worker training, supporting people who were trying to break their addictions and rebuild their lives. Three hundred people applied for twelve places. I was one of the twelve.

  At the end of the first day’s training, I told everyone: Today I came in as Johnny. Tomorrow when I come in, I’m going to be Jemma.’ I could see from their expressions that I’d ruffled some feathers, but they were just going to have to deal with it.

  To be honest, I looked like a man in a wig at the beginning but, ignoring curious looks, I plunged on into the training, which went really well. I soon found work once the course was completed, even going on to win awards. After all, I was once a user; I knew better than most what people were going through in their struggles with addiction and why they felt compelled to use something so harmful time and time again.

  Gradually my muscle tone changed, I grew more slender, my hair grew long and people started to see me as a woman. I met a wonderful man who did nothing but support me when I decided to have the operation. By this time I was a force to be reckoned with. I wasn’t about to take any nonsense from a doctor who hadn’t the slightest clue what it was like to be in my position. The way I saw it, the NHS had got me into this mess and it was up to them to sort it out.

  They tried but the operation was not a success. Because there wasn’t much of a penis to work with, it made the surgeon’s job difficult and, after I woke up, sore and thirsty as hell, I was welcomed back to the world with the news that I was going to have to use a catheter.

  I went home and, behind my wonderful boyfriend’s back, I started to look for Simon. Even though it had been seventeen years, I remembered my promise. He was the first man to love me and I had loved him so much, I still thought about him every day.

  And this time, I found him.

  Simon was on Facebook. I immediately ended it with my boyfriend and messaged Simon, telling him I was now a woman and he could have me as his wife. I said he was my first love and I would always love him, and that I would live with him forever. He responded, asking to meet, and I travelled to see him on the train.

  I almost didn’t recognise him. When he smiled, half his teeth were missing. He was old, withered, hunched and balding. ‘My God, he’s had a hard life,’ I thought. We walked to a hotel where Simon told me a sob story of drug addiction and alcoholism, how his family had suffered, driving him to drugs to escape.

  I said he should move in with me and I would help him get better. After all, I was a drug worker, right? What better person could there be to look after Simon and make him better?

  I still saw Dad regularly but I never told him about Simon. I knew he wouldn’t approve and that he would try and make me see sense. I didn’t want to see sense; I wanted to be with the man I loved more than I wanted to listen to the man who loved me like his own child.

  From the start I was blind to Simon’s crimes. He started sneaking out of the house to ‘get me a Starbucks’ when he was actually going to meet a heroin dealer.

  It wasn’t until I arrived home from work to find I’d been burgled and Simon was nowhere to be seen that I realised. He turned up a few days later, the money he made by selling my possessions for peanuts had all been spent on drugs. I lost it when I saw him, and he sat quietly while I ranted and raved, until I ran out of steam. Then he stood up, walked slowly over to me and belted me as hard as he could in the stomach. Catching me totally by surprise, I fell, gasping for air and then, as I lay there helpless, Simon kicked me between the legs. He was a big guy with heavy boots and my wounds were still sore from the surgery. I couldn’t get up for an hour.

  Even though Simon was a total psychopath I still believed I could change him, and that he would get better with time. Of course it would be tough and harsh in the beginning, I reasoned, but the longer he stayed with me, the better his chances were.

  Simon started to beat me regularly. My job was all about fixing people’s lives and here I was making a total mess of mine. There were happier times – when he was high or had access to drugs – when he poured out his heart to me, praised me, told me how sorry he was, that the drugs had made him into this monster. And then, a few days later, he’d punch me in the face because I wouldn’t give him money for drugs.

  We lived this way for three years and nothing changed. We moved house and, out of shame and fear, I didn’t see Dad for three years. I couldn’t bring myself to go because I knew I was failing and falling apart, and because I knew Dad would want me to leave Simon.

  We eventually met at a rooftop bar when my relationship with Simon was at its most abusive.

  ‘It’s not too late to stop this guy,’ Dad told me after I described some of my life with Simon. ‘I know you had to be with S
imon, he was too important a person in your life not to, but now you must see, it’s time to slay this monster that has been in your life for so long. For too long.’

  There was nothing I could say. I felt so helpless. It was impossible to leave Simon; he would never let me go.

  ‘Ill be there whatever you do,’ Dad said, with tears in his eyes. ‘Whatever you decide and whatever happens.’ I think he felt that Simon was going to end up killing me. We hugged for a long time and when I finally said goodbye, I felt like I might never see him again.

  It took me a year to persuade Simon to go to a drugs rehabilitation centre close to where I worked. My colleagues knew I was transsexual and I’d not been able to hide the beatings from them. ‘He’s made all the promises I need to hear,’ I told a work colleague after Simon went into rehab.

  She just shook her head. ‘Some people are bad through and through, and there’s nothing you can do.’

  A few days before Simon’s six-month stay in rehab was up, I was due to have another round of surgery to try and fix the problems caused by the last attempt. I really wanted to talk to Simon before I went in but when I called the centre they told me that he’d refused family therapy; that he didn’t want to talk to me.

  I told them that Simon had called me up just a few days earlier, telling me how much he loved me and how happy we were going to be once he got out. ‘I’m sorry, but he’s been very clear.’

  He was still messing with me, even while he was in rehab. That should have told me something. But love is blind.

  When Simon got out, a few days before my operation, it was as if nothing had changed. He took drugs and beat me up; a neighbour called the police when I screamed for help, and he started to strangle me before they arrived. When the police did finally turn up, Simon quickly calmed down and told them: ‘She hasn’t taken her meds.’ The officers looked at me. I knew not to say anything because Simon would find a way to make me pay if I did. ‘I’m taking care of her,’ Simon said. ‘She needs to give me one hundred pounds to get groceries and pay the bills.’ The police sided with Simon and went away, but not before they let him take my key. Simon called me up later that night, high and laughing at me, from a friend’s house.