three weeks previously a student film
crew have been making a film about me
about my gender journey I’d recently
received consent to go on the
transgender surgical waiting list
I should have been excited and ecstatic
it had also been my 45th birthday dozens
of people to come round to celebrate it
was the perfect setup for a midlife
crisis
it was the inauthenticity actually of
still trying to please others in my life
I’d had partners who said Katie keep
that bit of your body other partners
saying Katie get rid of that part of
your body I’m blessed now with a
partner’s sister do what the f you like
with your body it was that trying to
please others oh and not myself of not
actually doing what I needed all wanted
to do and also daily economic pressures
including eviction notices and debt
collectors coming to my door of trying
to conform to male-female and even
transgender stereotypes trying to abide
by the apparent rules of life which I’d
never really got or understood that
first time in primary school when you go
in and someone doesn’t like you and I
went home to mom and said somebody
doesn’t like me why don’t why do people
not like everyone I don’t get it
survival was a daily fight for me though
against the system and against myself it
was complicated by my anxiety disorders
one of several I collect three-letter
acronym itis I have mad bad GERD and sad
and it was worsened by my bipolar mood
swings these multiple straws combined to
break this sad camel’s back
and I attempted through bawling tears to
take my own life attempting suicide was
probably the single bravest thing I’ve
done in my life
it wasn’t cowardice I wasn’t a failure
life was failing me ironically my OCD
saved me and a long-standing friend and
neighbor next door who interrupted me at
2:00 a.m. in the morning trying to
complete my exit strategy subsequently
another friend then kidnapped me and fed
me my favorite comfortless on
for and took Weaver long walks on the
beach with their dogs and then after a
week two things happened I forgave my
friends for actually stopping me killing
myself and I finally wanted to live
again my mental health still haunts me I
live in an uneasy compromise with it
with its toils with its troubles I make
deals with it I barter with it I do much
better than before I’m off my meds and I
love it however I have to live in the
moment
in the current 24 hours in order to keep
going in order to survive at all I have
affordable form of bipolar that can last
for days weeks or months in a particular
mood made particularly worse during
winter and the light goes that seriously
affects me but it also can last minutes
and hours and it can rapid cycle between
highs and lows by passing anything in
between when I’m high I’m fearless and
irresponsible and hyper flirty when I’m
low I have chronic anxiety five minutes
in the right company and those can
switch around completely I’m
unpredictable unless you know me then I
am predictably Kati that’s why this talk
will reflect where I am right now not
last week and planning ahead is an
impossibility for me two years ago I had
a tumor removed it was a gender tumor
growing on my brain oddly the site of
the surgery was elsewhere
I nearly chickened out but the
anesthetist knocked me out just as I was
wanting to run it was a psychological
and physical relief though and something
I have not for a moment regretted in the
last two years the gender dysphoria
pressure on my mind was gone I came
round from the OP apart from asking for
the menu for dinner
feeling neither male nor female I felt
less gendered but definitely more human
my very existence feeling like an act of
rebellion against the gender binary
these two events two years ago and six
years ago have molded me my mental
health and my gender identity I was
actually going to speak on doing
different
and I wanted to make it about being
different
I wrote a talk all about that and the
more I read it the less it resonated
with me
it became formulaic and full of stats
and just wasn’t my natural self or voice
it was also last week’s and last month’s
thoughts in my head not today’s or last
nights I’ve had many wonderful partners
in my life mostly therapists who’ve
supported me in saying change your body
all you like but don’t change your voice
that is part of who you are so staying
true to myself in that respect it’s
become very important to me and that
means even this to talk right now is an
evolution and change in progress it is
disruptive in itself I am disruptive and
I currently relish that my thoughts
raced though I have flights of ideas
stopping me made hyper manic flow is
like trying to hold back the tide or a
tsunami my thoughts also jump around so
trying to keep a carrot thread on any
topic is impossible
I have something called Knights move
thinking as well I’ll think three steps
forward one step to the left one step to
the right and people think just how did
your mind get there Katie
we don’t follow my head is like the m25
in rush-hour cars going at every lane in
every direction and the only way I can
kind of navigate those thoughts in my
head is to try and mentally persuade
some of the cars some of the thoughts to
go into a service station and park up
what you’re hearing now is already me
slowed down a conscious continual
draining effort to only let out some of
my high speed legal high thinking i
diary every day and I write continually
often 50,000 to 70,000 words a week as
it processes my thoughts and slows me
down and it’s cathartic to my moods
anyway so where was I version 2 of my
talk that I was thinking about and
writing down involved utterly abandoning
the text so I went from conformity to
utter rebellion and I wanted to release
a truckload of kittens on stage now I
love cats the internet loves cat
where could I go wrong well I couldn’t
get it past the ethics committee for the
talk so this is the next best thing my
cats helped me so much
they should be on prescription for
everyone they calm my anxieties and my
moods they teach me to chill out and
worry less when I stroke them I calm
down and people know me that when they
stroke my hair I slow down but they
can’t reach me now as to the original
talk I planned I’m going to follow the
example of my year 8 English teacher who
walked into class on the first lesson of
the year and tore up the lesson plan sat
on the desk and opened a book and just
started reading to us and didn’t stop
for a whole year he didn’t seem to set
us any work or yeah and the one essay we
handed in he never marked I was in
bottom three of the class at the
beginning of that year and by the end of
the year I was in the top three of the
class for English he was so inspiring
teachers need more freedom to do
different as a result I’ve become very
good with words but I still feel a need
to be more authentically me by tearing
up the script on occasion if not all the
time I need to be less constructed less
clever with words in order to be more
vulnerable I’ve tried being male/female
non-binary each of LGBTQ IQA MP and
after decades wearing masks and trying
to be something I’m not I realized the
trick is to be yourself or in my case to
be Katie John not anyone else even the
TED Talks official guide on page 57 I
checked says be yourself Carl Rogers the
psychologist said that being yourself
means shedding all the layers of looking
good of wanting to be liked of being
scared to stand out and trying to be who
you think you want to be instead being
self being yourself means being naked
raw and vulnerable I hope to be two out
of those three we come into the world
naked I arrive not breathing and it took
six to seven minutes to get me started
breathing and an hour before they got my
gender right or had they being naked was
one of the first things that petrified
me in my life due to my body in gender
dysphoria so I avoided all
in sports I avoided the swimming rooms
and changing rooms I got out of rugby as
soon as possible the rugby showers
petrified me as an adult though I went
on workshops to overcome those very
fears but don’t worry I’m not gonna
prove it and get naked now but raw and
vulnerable I aim to be a nakedness of
the soul in order to grow healthily
Rodgers argued that we need a
genuineness of self and the acceptance
and empathy of others to fulfill our
potential and achieve the highest level
of human being nostalgic rossol labels
he believed that for a person to achieve
that self-actualization they must be in
a state of congruence between their
ideal self and their actual self another
psychologist well actor and martial
artist Bruce Lee said the strongest
force in the universe is a human being
living consistently with their identity
well as a trans person my ideal an
actual self were constantly in conflict
for me as with my moods as well high and
low my extraversion and introversion I’m
an ambivert so I couldn’t grow I was
living inconsistently with my identity
which meant almost having a split
personality and living a lie as a child
five years old or so I remember that
when they said to this class girl sit
there boys sit there and in my head I
was thinking where do I sit I knew I
looked like the boys mostly I had a
growth and hormone development disorder
that meant I was the shortest kid in
class but I also felt tribally that I
belonged with the girls and I had enough
insight to know that I recognized the
difference and the distance between that
age ten we played kiss chase in the
school playground and I remember
thinking well I’m fairly certain it’s
the girls that I want to kiss but I’m
also fairly certain I want the girls
team but that would be kind of unfair
because I would start with an advantage
because in those days the only kiss
chase you could play at school was
heterosexual kiss chase so I thought I’d
better go and stand with the boys at the
other then to the playground to give the
get others a chance I tried to man up at
an all-boys school did three years in
the Army Cadets I tried to blend in tone
down I tried to be normal
not different and I tried certainly not
to be myself standing out was the last
thing I wanted I wanted to be invisible
for the ground to open up and swallow me
I spent the first 40 years of my life
trying exceedingly hard to function that
way to be normal to be accepted to be
the same as the next person as everyone
else and to belong
but I didn’t Albert Camus says that
nobody realizes that some people spend
tremendous energy just trying to be
normal
trying to be something they’re not well
exhausted me and I ended up depressed in
a pale shade of the person that either
was or am now lana wachowski one of my
heroes one-half of the amazing matrix
and sense8 sisters says that normal is
something that does not have to be
defined for you but rather by you but
like heck I wasn’t ready to define
anything I was afraid of losing my faith
my family my friends and any hope of a
future partner and so I stuck my head
below the parapet and married a
psychiatrist well if you’ve ever put a
bottle of wine in the oven to chill it
because it’s freezing so I have no
central heating in my house and
forgotten it then you understand what
happens next in the straitjacket of that
marriage in gender role my cork
eventually burst out and the wine went
everywhere divorced debt and disaster
ensued doors were slammed in my face I
lost friends I was thrown out of my
church I ended up in therapy out of the
frying pan and into the fire
I’d previously tried religious prayer
and deliverance to rid myself of well
myself but that had obviously failed my
transgender demon was a stubborn
squatter in my soul I asked my therapist
if she could help me stop being
transgender she said no but she could
support me on my journey to being myself
and she recommended a book and it was
the best book I never read it was called
fill the fear and do it anyway by Susan
Jeffers I read the cover and tried to
take it literally okay there’s a small
lie because I still feel fear and it
took me another five years to come to
terms with who I was my actual
psychiatrist one of several I have told
me that I was the most
octant transsexual he’d ever met and he
was dealing with 50 to 60 transsexuals a
year and meeting me as well he said it
was obvious you were trans because you
were trying way too hard to be male I
never really came out in fact I was
outed and I’m singularly grateful for
that because I don’t think I would have
had the courage to come out until many
years later had I not been outed I loved
the confidence and acceptance that young
people have now to come out ahead of
time I wish I could roll back the clock
and come out at 15 not at 4:00 in my
forties I didn’t feel though that the
categories of male female or even being
trans ever fitted me fully I was like
not a square peg in a round hole I was
like a unique peg that didn’t fit in the
square hole or the round hole I still
find binary gender options utterly
limiting I just want to break free it’s
a quote Freddie Mercury one of my heroes
Albert Camus though again said the only
way to deal with an unfree world is to
become so absolutely free that your very
existence is an act of rebellion well I
never had the guts it’s called for a
bell I was conforming on the outside
whilst screaming on the inside in the
Second World War my granddad was in the
home guard that would have been me
whilst my great-uncle was a spy in
Yugoslavia working with Tito’s
resistance that would have been rebel me
I often dreamt of being a spy I love
languages and I was very good at hiding
my true identity in plain sight well
GCHQ the government spy agency now
claims it has several transgender spies
and that it needs those who are
different to fulfill its mission well
they can get my number afterwards being
yourself is encouraged if you fit but
less so if you are considered a problem
deviant or dangerous to establish norms
being an individual or a type or agenda
means you cannot be pigeonholed you’re
an unknown quantity that cannot be
measured or prepared for Taylor Swift
said is you’re lucky enough to be
different don’t ever change well if that
we are all different and therefore also
lucky no two humans are the same not
even twins we’re humans first and then
any one of several different categories
labels an issue second because we live
multiple issue lives we don’t live these
single issue lives as Audrey Lorde said
snow flakes is a term that’s been
bandied about to negatively describe
social justice warriors sensitive Souls
and just about anyone disagreeing with
the status quo or having a hard time at
a distance or underfoot snow is just
snow but each individual snowflake is
also unique and together in an avalanche
is ultimately powerful whether as
individual disrupters on gender health
or ND hating violence or banding
together these snowflakes can make a
difference in politics the environment
LGBT abuse and mental health campaigns
they’re all so astonishingly beautiful
under the microscope there’s a beauty in
our very vulnerability when we see the
human under the labels past the facade
of saying that everything is OK
everything isn’t okay but change begins
with us in fact it begins with me
paradoxically there’s a strength in
revealing our fragility it’s for is
scary to do it but it lets us get closer
to each other it builds trust and
support and helps us see our differences
in common humanity I’ve laid a little of
myself bare not much but scratch beneath
the surface of all of us and our
combined differences in essential
humanity just could change the world for
the better so my encouragement is to
embrace your difference because in so
doing you’re hugging yourself and
changing the world one person at a time
only you can live your own life don’t
imitate individuate and innovate be
authentically you you’re beautiful and I
spell that be you to the full thank you [Applause]