Dana de Milo [AI Text]

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My name is Donna de Milo. I was born on the 29th of the 8th, 1946 in Auckland, New Zealand. Um, baby, um, I ran away from home when I was 13, which was 1960. It was Queen's birthday weekend. Funny that And TV had just started black and white television and I ran away from home to be me. Um, yeah. And, [00:00:30] um, I actually met Carmen not long after I was at a place called the Kado Coffee Lounge, which used to be in, um I think it's AC, a custom street or key street. But the one that was at the bottom of Queen Street, the first one isn't that terrible? I can't remember. I haven't lived in Auckland for over 50 something years. Um, I think it's street and the Great Northern Hotel was on the corner on the left as [00:01:00] you were coming down Queen Street right on the corner. And underneath that, on in the key street was a coffee lounge called the and opposite. There was a street which is no longer called little Queen Street. And I happened to be in the because a friend of mine worked behind the bar. And then came this beautiful woman in a Sam with long dark hair. And she was very slim and very gorgeous and very un I didn't have a clue, [00:01:30] except there was something about her that drew me towards her. And I was up by the counter and there was nothing I. I can't say what it was, but I just knew. And when she left, I said to my friend, I said, Oh, do you think that might have been a man? And she said, What makes you say that? I said, I don't know. But anyway, I followed her down to Little Queen Street and she was working in a a nightclub for Ray and has as a as a dancer, stripper, exotic dancer. And I used to stand out there. [00:02:00] I used to go there every night because I was so interested and stand outside this club because I didn't have the money to get in and watch and hope that every time someone went in or out and opened the door, I'd get to catch a glimpse of this. This person, as I later found out, was Carmen. I didn't know who she was at first, and then I found out that she had told the guy on the door to let me in because one night he said, You can come in and sit at the back, come and see it And I said, Who's Carmen? And he And he pointed her out to me. And then I realised who she was, [00:02:30] and she had told him to let me in that it was, you know, yeah, because and, um and then I never saw her again. Not long after that, um, I started, um, going on the ships and things and staying away from or getting away from Auckland because it was very, very The police were very heavy in Auckland at the time. They used to get the dogs on to us and everything and follow it. You know, you couldn't go on the street. Um, and they would arrest you and put you in the lock up, you know? And they couldn't lock you. They couldn't [00:03:00] charge you with anything because there was no law against dressing in the opposite sex as clothes. So I found out listening to them at the key. The key, uh, police station, which is no longer there. I don't think right opposite the wharf. They used to take me there all the time. New kid on the block And, um, I heard them saying, because it was it was one of those old fashioned police stations. They had bars, you were in behind floor to ceiling bars, and I was leaning up against the even. I'm deaf and the good listening. [00:03:30] And he was saying one person was saying to the other, There's nothing we can do because there's no law against dressing in the opposite sex as clothes, unless to cause a Felonious act. Example. Blackened face, et cetera. In other words, you use you were using drag as a, um to cause a Felonious act. Of course you were if you were cracking it, I suppose. But they didn't know that, Um, so they had to let me go all the time. But when they let me go, you see, I had to walk from the city [00:04:00] through three or four different suburbs to get to get where I was living and each suburb the policeman would ring the next policeman so they could have a little joke on their way you know, um, Donna, can I just take you back a wee bit? Because I'm really interested in the 19 sixties to expand a wee bit on what it was actually like as a as a as a as a young person. You said that you you kind of ran away from him at the age of 13. What? What happened and and why did I run away? I run away [00:04:30] because I didn't think my mother would accept me because, um, I used to get a hiding all the time for dressing up. Not not from my grandmother, Not from my aunties or anything. Only my mother. And it wasn't until many years later that when we got back together after I was 21 Because I've been told by my doctor that up to 21 you're under the the those days you were under your parents, guardianship Didn't matter if you had a house, a business or a car. If your parents didn't like the way you lived, you could be put into a loony bin. And and he [00:05:00] told me that. So I knew. That's why I was very wary because I didn't think my mother would accept me because she always gave me a hiding for it. But later she said she knew and was waiting for it to happen. But I said, Why didn't you say? And then she said, And she said, And I said, Why did you give me hidings? And she said, Well, no mother and the penny dropped and I forgave her immediately. No, Mother likes to see their child pointed at bashed and picked on and harassed. And I thought, Mm, you're right. I understand. Now [00:05:30] I do understand. I didn't then, um so that's the reason I ran away. And also Auckland was very difficult In those days. You couldn't wear women's clothes on the street. You could wear full makeup and hair and everything, but you couldn't wear women's clothes. And if you wore a bra or anything, you're supposed to wear a singlet underneath it. In those days. That's the early sixties. We're talking 1960 through to and then see Carmen actually changed the law in Auckland because she got picked on the cops picked [00:06:00] on her going home in a car with this guy and um tried to have her up, and she took it to court, and they took it to court with the guy and proved that he was just taking her home from work, which I don't think he really was. I think she was cracking up with him. But anyway, he was willing to stand up and say he was driving her home from work and she won the case saying that there was no law against her being like she was. So it changed it a lot in Auckland. That was about 1965 or something like that. [00:06:30] I think when I was well and truly living here in Wellington, then I came to Wellington to live permanently in 63. When? When did you start dressing 60 in 1960. So, at the age of 13, when I ran away, I tried it for, um I thought because, you know, people used to say it was because, um, which is it? See, it was John Money's idea. Nurture, not nature. So of course, any parent thought it was their fault. If they looked into anything and they found anything about it, it was all written by Doctor [00:07:00] John Money, who was a New Zealander who went to the, um, my doctor wanted my mother to see me. The the, um it's a It's a it's a it's a hospital and university in America Hopkins University Hopkins Hospital. Um, anyway, um, so if any parents looked up anything about being trans well, it wasn't even called transgender. In those days, you we were drag queens and Butch, Butch Queens. [00:07:30] It didn't matter if that queen gotten dragged on the weekend or not. They were still called Butch Queen because they worked as boys during the day we were drag queens because we lived as queen as women. And if you read anything about it, you would come against John money and his was nurtured and his was nurture, not nature. He didn't believe he believed you could bring a child, bring a child up to be a girl or to be a boy. And so I suppose this is what people thought and people used to say, Oh, it's because your father and my father had only been dead 18 months or something, [00:08:00] you know? I mean, Dad was sick all through my life, but I still had my father's influence, you know, And he knew he knew said to my mother, Well, stop making him do the housework. You're only making it worse. You know, Mum used to say he's got to stand on his own 2 ft when he leaves home. Or or if anything happens to me and and And I mean, they knew, Dad. But I knew from this high that my father was going to die. And, um, because he had Hodgkins lymphatic Hodgkin's disease. But it wasn't known as that. It was just in the very beginning, they thought it was TV. And then they found out it was [00:08:30] Hodgkins. Anyway, so anything my mother would have read, which I know she would have tried to would have been about John Hopkins. So she thought it was It was nurture, not nature. So, um, she used to give me hidings all the time. You see, if she caught me dressed up and and my mother could give her a good bloody hiding, let me tell you, I'm deaf in one ear because of it. Um but it was the only thing I thought of him for that I kept going back to do that. She couldn't stop me. How did you dress up. What [00:09:00] were you dressing in? Uh, her clothes, Um, and my grandmother's clothes. I used to come home from school every day. My grandmother, my father's mother, stayed with us for quite a while, and he used to tell her these lies and say, I did a play at school and I was the girl in it. And what have you and she And she was an old Victorian. So we used to sit all the chairs out in the lounge, and she'd sit in the middle, and we'd put toys on the bloody seat to pretend there was an audience and she'd end up nodding off, and I would around the house and carry on. And at the end, I'd make a big noise and she go, Oh, beautiful. Did she clap, clap? [00:09:30] And that was it. You know, um, and I can remember once. See, my mother had a car. So you never think because you're young? I was about 9. 10. You never think of your mother, um, car breaking down. And mum had gone after the dressmakers, and I'm dressed up in her clothes. Um, I've got on these seam stockings and toe peep shoes. and this gown this this full fled skirt and a sequin top. And I mean, this is broad daylight. I mean, please, broad [00:10:00] daylight, a fur on and a sein top and a bras with lemons in them. Um, and my mother had one of them. They just come out was in the fifties. So what could have been even a bit late? It could have been 58. Dad could have been passed, and it was a hat wig. They were these fun wigs, hat, wigs. And Mum had done it like a wig. Done it like a hairstyle, but stuck it on this doll in her in her room. And I had stuck this on and I had a fascinator on top of it. And I'm standing and I've been smoking since I was about six [00:10:30] or seven because they said it stunted your growth. Yeah, right. You know, I was 5 ft two in the premise. I was very tall. Anyway, I'm standing at the and we only had one. The garage and a and a uh um, a driveway. And it was next door. I had didn't have a garage, a driveway. They used the same driveway. Anyway, this taxi pulls up in the drive. I'm standing at the gate puffing a cigarette on, all dressed up like that, and this taxi stops And I think, Oh, it's the boys next door. [00:11:00] Suck on a cigarette, love blow out smoke. And all of a sudden I saw this white hair and my mother was platinum blonde natural Come out from from beside this taxi And I thought to my mother I swallowed the cigarette and I thought, What am I going to do, run around the back and rip it all off? Or shall I just walk up the street and pretend I was selling something? Well, of course, you know how could you be selling something dressed like that in broad daylight and started to wander up the street and next thing by the air and ripped inside? You're the hiding, but yeah, that's that's [00:11:30] That's why I ran away because I didn't think she'd accept me. And she said she would have, but too late. You know, I'd run away by then. Where did you run away to? I ran away to some friends place. Uh, I actually had a very good boss. My boss. Um, I was an apprentice French polisher because my mother made me. I left school at 12 at 12.5. Got special permission to leave school and go into a trade. I hated school. [00:12:00] Locos picked on at school all my life. My mother didn't know that, though. Mum didn't. I never told my mother because, you see, kids want to make their parents proud and, you know, especially if if teachers are abetting these kids, you know, they're helping them. Um, they were just as bad as the kids. They would egg them on, you know, make the bullets and they'd fire them. So you knew. I knew in my heart that it wasn't something my parents would be proud of, so I wasn't gonna tell them. So I never told my mother ever until, [00:12:30] you know, after I was 21 and when she came and got me here in Wellington, we went home for a holiday. I told her everything, and she said, Why didn't you tell me? I said, because it would have just made it worse. I said, remember, you used to make me dance with those Indian girls. I wanted to dance with them and look at their jewellery and the and the things between their eyes at school. But I didn't do it be be willingly because the kids would say I was garlic stink the next day and all that sort of That's the way kids were. And Mum would make me go and dance with these Indian girls, you see, so they wouldn't be on their [00:13:00] own. And, um, next day, as sure as eggs I'd get picked on. And I said to You don't realise That's why I used to say no all the time to you, and you'd say, Go and dance with the You know, nobody wants to dance with her. You go and dance with her and I didn't want to and I'd say, No, no, And she'd say, If you know and I'll give you a hiding And I'd say, But you don't understand. But I, I wouldn't tell her that I'd get picked on the next day. You see, so and and of course you got. Even nowadays, I think that people still think they're alone. And in those days you even felt more alone. You know, I [00:13:30] had heard of, um Christine Jorgenson and I had thought that I was 10 or 12 when I read about her. But I was, um it was 1952 So I I would have been, um I was born in 46 so I would have been six years old. When I read about her, my mother asked me to set the fire, and I was crushing up the paper into balls and it came across this on the front page. Um [00:14:00] um, what is it? G? I change swaps, sex or changes sex or something, and had a photo of her with her hat on the side as a G I and a photo of her as a woman. And I remember ripping it out, putting it in my pocket and every night, reading it under the blankets with a torch and thinking, Oh, well, I'm not the only person. And then the year I left home was the year. April Ashley had her change. 1960. Um, so, yeah, so I didn't know until [00:14:30] 2002 that I was actually only six years old. I thought I read about it when I was dead so that I knew at six years old that I was like that I knew before that. Anyway, I always knew. Can you describe for me what kind of child you were? Well, I'd say now, precocious. I mean, I wouldn't have said it once, because I I was an only child because my mother couldn't have any more Children. I was one of 13 pregnancies that survived My mother. Um, I was Yeah, [00:15:00] I was a 13. My mother kept losing her babies. They didn't know. And even when she died, she didn't know. I found out through someone that I knew that was a theatre sister and everything that, um every time my mother got pregnant, she got diabetic, you see? And, um, she became and that's why I believe it's about, um if the mother is stressed out having a baby, it affects the brain. Um, you know, the body is formed and everything, but the brain isn't completely formed. And when a woman is very stressed, she flushes estrogens, [00:15:30] and they say that it's such and such a semester. But I mean, my mother's mother was dying and she died on the first of August. I was born on the 29th, and my father was in the hospital and they didn't know what was wrong with her. So I mean, that's a lot of stress. And my mother's mother wouldn't let anyone else but her feed her. And my mother was toxic. Um, it's blown up like a balloon. And, um, she had to go from hospital to hospital, you know? So that's stress. And I can imagine that's I. [00:16:00] I actually believe that, you know, because, um uh, you know, I I wasn't brought up, like when they say nurture, it's that it's not true. It's nature. I was always like it. I mean, at three years old, my grandfather knew, he said to my grandmother, I was different, you know, um, because he gave me a toy and it was a beautiful, bright red car made out of steel with black, black, lovely, shiny black wheels and the skies all cast iron, [00:16:30] you know, after the war and it had, um, I was three. So it was about 1949 and just before after he died, before he died, I mean, and it had a little man inside it and he had a helmet on. They were all painted different colours, and I remember picking it up, thinking how pretty it was and picking it up and chucking it because it was cold and hard and it wasn't what it looked like and going. And my grandmother saying to my grandmother, He's different. I told you he's different [00:17:00] and Nana wasn't taking any notice and he got a bit louder And of course, I thought he was upset with me. So I started crying and he was going Wish Ben wish. He said He's different. I told you he's different, but he didn't care. But he knew there was something different about me, you know, and, um and I I and I don't remember ever not being the way I am. I mean, I used to go and swap all my toys for broken dolls, and Mum came and look on the box and say, How come you've got all these dolls? Go back [00:17:30] and get your toys back? So I go and get my toys back and say, the girl, I'll just I'll come back later and I'll I'll swap them again. And I used to keep swapping them all these broken dolls for toys. But um, I would say that I was very precocious. I mean, I could I could read, write and read poetry and everything Before I went to school. I spoke Maori before I went to school. Um, so I was rather a precocious child. I would say, um, the lady next door thought I was a little girl for years. [00:18:00] Didn't, um I actually asked my mother many years later. What? Where was Carol? You know, where's Carol? And it was me, Darryl, You know. So, um, I I was clever. I was a very intelligent child until I went to school. And when I hit the standards, that was the end of me. Um, because I got picked on by the kids in the standards they used to call me, uh, pickled onions 5 ft two just to escape from New York Zoo. Because I was the tallest kid in the school. [00:18:30] Always from the very beginning. They thought I had Kleins Felder because I was so tall. I ended up growing so quick that the ligaments in my legs were so stretched there was no fluid in them. So I had to have plaster cast on my leg because I couldn't put my heels to the ground. I just like a weed. I shot up, you know, And, um was when I went into this from to the standards, Um, that, Yeah, everything just started going downhill from then on because the kids would pick on me all the [00:19:00] time, you see, and teachers were no better. Was it quite usual or unusual to leave school at the age of 12? I mean, was it was it kind of 12.5? Um, you got special permission? I don't know. There were some kids that and especially if you weren't doing very well. And I wasn't. I wasn't doing well and which was so frustrating for my parents, my mother and and, um well, dad would pass by them, but it was so frustrating. I mean, once I even got failed [00:19:30] at school, you know? Uh, only because the teacher was shitty with, Well, he he he he fancied my cousin that he'd done, um, he'd done his training college with and because she didn't even like him. He was a horrible little man. Um, he took it out on me, and I was failed one year, so they took me Mum and Dad took me to the education board. And I did this exam, which was an English exam from England, and I passed everything except arithmetic, and they suggested [00:20:00] that I should be put into the next class where I should be. But the headmaster said no and they held me back. Um, so II I had the teachers against me as well, you know, like he used to make me cry. Get me out in front of the class and make me cry and then take Send me outside and then he come out and say to me, Why did you cry? You know, those sorts of things. So there was only two teachers in my school that were really nice. And that was a married couple. And they were really good to me, Mr Mrs Hardy. But other than that, it was hell. [00:20:30] It was absolute hell. My at school. I loved it. I mean, I. I can see why people murdered people, you know, because I used to think about how can I kill them to get How can I kill these bastards to leave me alone? You know, I used to get asthma attacks because I used to get asthma quite bad. And I used to get asthma attacks. And if I couldn't get if I didn't get one normally just getting stressed out, I'd try and force myself to have one so I wouldn't have to go to school. That's how much I hated it. I love school. Was nothing good about it at all for me. And yet [00:21:00] I loved learning. I loved history. I loved everything. But I hated school because of the kids. And because I was obviously sis, I was obviously a girlie, you know, I was obviously a sissy. There was no hiding it. I was just the way I was made. I just you know, my mother used to say to me, You walk like a girl, for God's sake, walk on them. And the more I tried to walk straight, the worse it was, you know? So it was just the way I was, you know? What kind of words would they tease you with? Oh, sissy. [00:21:30] I was called. I was called Susie right through school. They scratched it on my they scratched it onto my pencil case and thing. And my mother said to me, Who did that? What did you do this for? What fancy do they use the compass? You know, what did you do that for? Who's Susie? And I'm sort of standing there like a blowfish, you know, all red thinking. What am I gonna say? And she said, Oh, I know you got yourself a girlfriend, Have you? And Oh, yeah, That's the first time I thought I lied in my life about who I was because [00:22:00] it got me off getting a hiding from scratching on my You know, my auntie had bought me this pencil case and rule it with all the inlays of wood and everything. And it was expensive, you know? How do you? I said I didn't. And and then, of course, who did? And then, of course, I didn't want to tell her. And then she goes, Oh, I see you've got yourself a girlfriend. And so I got off it that way. But, um, yeah, I school wasn't enjoyable for me. One little bit. You've got really vivid memories, and I'm wondering, what is your earliest memory? [00:22:30] Um, with my grandparent, My grandfather, about two or three carrying me on his shoulders on the wharf to the Rua ferry going to Waiheke Island. They lived in Waiheke Island and I hated the gaps between the the boards on the on on on the on the wharf because I was only little, of course, and my feet could fall between them and right up until I was about 11, I still hated those gaps in my my mother used to say, Hurry up, get across and I I hate it. I [00:23:00] used to jump over them. I hated them, and my granddad used to carry me everywhere and everything. Yeah, that's I'd say about two or three is my most vivid of memories of my grand, especially of my grandparents. My granddad, we just He was always my granddad was always there, and it was later in life and he died when I was three. He had carcinoma of the lungs from the first World War. Um, must must have guess, inhalation. And, um, [00:23:30] he used to come to me at night when I was asleep and I would wake up and I would see this light shining through the Venetian blinds on this bald head. And now to hear this And of course, you forget you forget as you get older, you know? And I forgot that it was my grandfather. We like that and I'd wake up and I'd be like that and nothing would come out, you know? And then all of a sudden I'd be screaming and Mum would come out and settle me down. And later on, I said to my mother, when I when she came to get me [00:24:00] and went home, we we were talking about things and I said to her, You know, how I used to be creaming at night and she said Yes. I said, Do you know what that was? And she said, What? And I explain Well, she said, that'd be your grandfather. And I said, What do you mean? She said. And that was my dad's dad. She said, Well, you were the only child, the only grandchild. And he used to stand at the end of your cot for hours at night, in the dark, just looking at you, just just staring at you because he just loved you so much because you were You were his only grandchild. Because Uncle Harry never had any Children. You see, And so apparently, [00:24:30] there was the apple of his eye. You know, I've got a photo of him holding me in there, but, um, yeah, those are my earliest memories. And and as I said, II, I forgot, You know, that he used to have a wheezy chest until mum said it. And then all of a sudden, I remember that it used to my legs used to be on his chest and how it used to his chest used to heave, you know, when he carried me over his shoulders. So, yeah, that's my earliest memories. It's amazing how just those small things can trigger a memory or trigger something that you've forgotten. [00:25:00] Well, I'd forgotten that he had that. He that he wheezed, you know, because, you know, I was probably about nine or 10 years old, nine years old when this was happening or something. So he'd been dead for about six years, you know, and you forget just those little things. And it wasn't till Mum said it would be your grandfather. And it all flipped into place because then I remember he did have a wheeze, you know, but yeah. So 12.5 you went and did an apprenticeship. What? What was that French polishing? I went to work for a guy called Doug Elliot [00:25:30] and he worked, Uh, there was in Williamson's road in Auckland. There was a Cabinet maker by the name of Torres and son, which is quite funny because that was my mother's my grandmother's maiden name. And that was my dad's middle name. Eric Torrence and I went to work for, um, Doug Elliott, who worked a subcontractor. Well, he was his own contract, but he used to do all the French polishing and all of that, and and, um, Polyurethanes were just coming out in those [00:26:00] days. And anyway, I worked for him as an apprentice and he had three daughters, young daughters, and he knew that I was the way I was. And he used to say to me, Just like my bloody daughters, you're no different to my girl. And I used to go and stay with him on weekends often because he had the three girls and we used to go out on ponies and that, and it was him that helped me run away Queen's birthday weekend. I was supposed to go on the Thursday night and come and go back home on the Tuesday So I'd have Friday, Saturday, Sunday, [00:26:30] Monday at his place. Go back to work Tuesday and go home Tuesday night. Well, of course I didn't go home. I'd we'd already planned it. He planned it. So that if if Mum rang, then then his wife, what was her name? Doug. And? And, um And she would say that I was out with the girl, the kids, you know, and, um, taking them out on the pony or something. So, um, it wasn't till the Tuesday night that I never [00:27:00] got home and my mother started ringing to ask him where I was, and he said he didn't know that I hadn't come to work that day. And so what happened? Well, I don't know. I wasn't There was I. I wrote, written her a note and, um, cried all the way through. It was all tears. Dane saying that, you know, I didn't want to hurt her because I loved her. And I did. I adored my mother. Absolutely adored her. She could be a hard task master, but I still adored her, and I and I was very much loved by her, and she was very strict. [00:27:30] But the fact is that I wouldn't be where I am today. If it wasn't for her, I learned to cook clean, dig gardens, cut hedges, cut trees, mow a quarter acre section with a hand and all those sorts of things. I was doing that at six and said was cooking at six years old, you know? And, um so she made me Yeah, she was exactly right what she said to my father, I was able to look after myself, and I was able to make a living right throughout my life, you know? And, um but, um, [00:28:00] so I ran away from and I ran away, and I went and stayed with the people next door were she was a German Samon and her husband was a was a Maori. He was from the All Blacks from the thirties, and, um, they were the only dark people in our area and, uh, got snubbed by everybody, of course. And we were middle class, even though we were poor because my father was ill. But we lived in a middle class area Grey. They call it gay not Wasn't gayly in my day, I can tell you, but anyway, I lived in Grey and [00:28:30] they would end up when my mother said you ought to play with them. You're not to play with those other kids. You go in in there and play with them, you know? So I grew up. My mother was very My mother believed that there was good and bad in all people. And, um, you know, it didn't matter what colour your skin was. We were all the same. And so I was brought up to be like that. And they They're the ones that helped me when I ran away, Um, one of the boys next door. He was a seaman merchant Seaman and his mates took [00:29:00] me in, and, um and I used to go on the ships and go all around the place on the ships. You know, I used to ring bolt around the guys used to not for sex, because but I used to go and do the washing and everything for them while they and I stay on the ship. And I went to Australia long before I'd ever really went to Australia. Um, went all around New Zealand and all that sort of thing on these steamship, the the the blue Starlight, all those sorts of boats. So when [00:29:30] you were on the ships, was this as Darryl or as Donna? Um, I was Darryl right up until I worked for Carmen, even though I was in women's clothes, because my mother told me that even if I'd been born a girl, she would have called me Darryl because that's the name she liked. And it was a name you could use for a boy or girl, and it couldn't be shortened because she hated her name was Myrtle shed people calling her my She said, Well, you can't shorten. Um, Darryl, you know. So that's why she gave me the [00:30:00] name and she said, and I asked her, and I said, Oh, what would you call me if I'd been a girl? And she said, This is when I was a little kid and she said, The same Darryl because it's it's it can be used for a boy or a girl. And it's D, a double RYL and the only other spelling I ever saw that was Darryl FX, funnily enough, and there was a lot of Darryl's later on in life, but they all had the one R or something like that. Anyway, um, I. I was Darryl. I was Darryl, but I was in girls clothes and I was Darryl right up until the late sixties [00:30:30] until I went to work for Carmen Carmen's Coffee Lounge. And she said, You can't use that name because you'll have all the Maori in the park coming to look for you because I knocked with all around with all the Maori people, you know. And so she said, You got to change your name. So I changed it to from the perfume Taboo by Dana and I used the Yanks. I used to go with the R and R guys, the black Americans, off the ship, and they used to bring me, uh, taboo, which was the perfume of [00:31:00] the day in those days in the early sixties. And they used to bring it for me because it was like £5 a bottle or £10 a bottle or something in those days. Now it's just cheap, but it was the top of the line taboo by done, and that's where I got my name from Just want to rewind just a wee bit. And when II I just want to go back to the letter that you wrote your mum. Can you tell me about what was in that I wrote to her saying that, um, as you know, Mum, I was I left home because I was a sissy. [00:31:30] Well, that didn't, uh I'm going to be because I was going to be a man. So I put on my suit and I looked good in a suit, as you would know, because we're both torn and looked good in clothes, you know, and go off to get a job and get giggled at all the time. And I thought, Well, if they're going to giggle at me, I'm going to bloody dress as the way I feel. So I put on a dress from that moment on, more or less. Um um when I came to Wellington in 63 it became, uh, because you you couldn't go out at night in women's clothes. We used to go to the pub and then we'd go home. [00:32:00] We'd either pick up a guy to take us home or we'd have enough money for a taxi. We'd go home, put it in our clothes, our girls clothes, and then and then go out on a taxi or something. And the times that we didn't we got chased by the police, myself and I who's now passed away, and they got the dogs onto us and everything. This is a but, um, I was Darryl, and then I came to Wellington to live in 63 permanently. When your mom received that note I I put on it. What did I put? Um, as you know, I was I was [00:32:30] a sissy, and, um well, I live dress. Oh, the note that when I left was I'm leaving home to become a man. I'm sick of being called a a fruit was one of the words I used to say and a I've got to leave home and be a man Stand on my own 2 ft, which I was doing anyway, But this is what people put into your brain, you see, and you start to believe it. Like I believe that I was I was dirty and I was a pervert and everything else, because that's what society told [00:33:00] me. It wasn't until I had my change and I realised I'm not a dirty person. I'm a good person, you know. But it took 30 years, you know, till I was 30 to realise that, you know, because this is what society puts upon you. You're pervert. You're dirty. You know, even the police. Everybody call you these filthy name. So you become to you know, it's like if you're an Aboriginal, you know, from the moment you open you from the moment you're born, you know you're never gonna be anything because then, you know, because there's nothing for you, they don't want you, they don't. There's [00:33:30] no job. There's no nothing, you know? And that was the same. You know, in the sixties, you couldn't get a job if you had a beetle haircut. If you had a beetle haircut and more modern clothes in the sixties in New Zealand, you were up. There was plenty of straight guys that we knew they had Beatle haircuts and wore the modern clothes that mixed with all of us the prostitutes and the lesbians and the queens and the ship moles and everyone at the old bistro bar because they were on. They were classed as as a a AAA as a a minority because they [00:34:00] they were. You didn't have long. Yeah, short, back and sides. And you wore a bloody suit. You don't wear those stove wear pants and all this and that's how that's how straight la yes, we were. I mean, when I left in 1976 people still dressed to go to the city, you wouldn't dare go to the city in a pair of shorts or a tracksuit. And that's in 76. You know what I mean? You still dressed to go to the city. I can remember being on the bus once coming down, um, Taranaki Street and these two old ladies and I had on my [00:34:30] scarf and my rollers underneath and my coat and stockings and shoes and everything. And these two old ladies and I thought they'd sprung me, you know, And yes, I know. She said, Look at her. You can see her knees and she's got no gloves on the slat. So I went home and said to my friend, Oh, I've been called a slut. I've got Yeah, ask yourself. They're saying, you know, but, um you know, that's the way you felt. Because that's the way you were treated. You know, you, didn't you? We were the face of gayness. Even though I wasn't gay, I never [00:35:00] had gay sex or be it. I had anal sex, but, you know, I never had gay sex. And we were the face of gayness because gay men would run and hide might be at the party with them the night before. But you see, you're on the street, they're shot into the shop. They don't want to see you because they could hide behind their male clothes. Whereas, you know, we were the face of it. And we were the ones that got picked on unless you were overtly gay. Then you got picked on, too. But if you could sort of, um, you know, if he was a guy that could sort of scramble [00:35:30] up a bit look acting a bit, but well, then they didn't get picked on, But if you were different, you got picked on, you know? And it's the same as I say in It's in in the, um, museum. Papa was a little bit I said that, you know, we were taught that the police were the best thing before sliced bread because there was no sliced bread in my when I was young and you were taught by your parents. If if if you ever get into trouble, you need help, you go and see a policeman. They didn't say if you're different or you're queer or your your, [00:36:00] uh, a a goth or you want to be a woman or whatever you might be if you're different, you don't go near a policeman because they're God unto themselves. You know, there's one here that used to arrest me nearly every night of the week, you know, take me to the cells and make me dress and undress for every person that worked there. And then to make it his business, I'd fall asleep to wait till the next lot came on, and he'd make me wake me up and make me do it all over again. And there was nothing I could do about [00:36:30] it. No matter how I protested, there was nothing I could do about it. He was God, and that's how they played it. You couldn't if you they he'd say, um, get in the car and I'd say But I've done nothing wrong. He'd say, Get in the car. I'd say I've done nothing wrong. If you don't get in the car, I'll have you up for for hampering a policeman in his line of duty. So get in the car and he'd make his drivers because he always you had underlings with them and they'd be the ones that he'd make. Arrest me, not him. And he'd make [00:37:00] the guy speed off. And of course, we're talking sixties, you know, 63 456. And there was no seat belts, and he'd tear make him tear around at 80 miles an hour around the streets. And I hated speed. And he he knew your Achilles' heels, you see, And he knew I hated speed. Unless I'm in charge of it and I can control it. And he'd be abusing me, calling me a shirt lifter, which I didn't even know what it meant. A poo pusher. Um, all these sorts of filthy things I'd never even heard of in my life and calling me names. And does [00:37:30] your mother know you're a fucking freak and you know, and you fuck ass and I don't do that sort of thing. You know, all this used to really upset me, and then you'd make them pull into an alleyway and turn on the lights. Of course, it's dark in there and I turn on the inside light and you can see yourself in the in the window of the car and he'd push my face and and push it and push it and push it into the window until I said fuck off or pig or something. Go Gotcha and arrest. So arrested, Arrested, [00:38:00] You know, that's what they called you. It rest the thing or whatever, you know, I mean, I came back here in 91 and I and, um my niece was on Marion Street cracking it, and I was talking to her, and this guy kept arresting me one degree and I would pass. Those days were over, and, um and I Oh, I was pissed off and he wouldn't go anyway, All of a sudden, the policeman came around the corner and Stephanie said, Excuse me, Constable, could you ask that guy to take off? He's annoying [00:38:30] my auntie and she he took him away. And I I was flabbergasted absolutely flabbergasted. I said, You know what, girl? I said in my day they would have grabbed me by the shoulder and said, Now punch it for me. Give it one for me because that's what they were like, You know, they were just was shocking in those days. So I mean, no wonder you felt like a piece of dirt. You know, um, and I came to Wellington in 63. Um, I first worked for Manuel Papadopoulos and he had a strip club [00:39:00] in Manor Street. It was then and it was called the It was a restaurant. It went back to being a restaurant. But it was the restaurant called our Meador, and he changed it. And I think he was the first to have a strip club in Wellington, and he changed it. And it was called the club exotic with a QUE on the end of it. And then he opened up in in, um he opened up the purple onion in Vivian Street. And not long after Manuel bought the corner [00:39:30] block and opened up on the first floor. Um, the club exotic. And it was not the the club exotic it was club exotic, but I worked for him when he was a ministry, and, um, I was a waitress and had a good job there. But I stuffed it up because I got pissed one night at the Bistro bar and went on board a ship and never went to work. And the next night, I went to work and he said, No job for you finish. [00:40:00] And I thought, What about my pay? No job, No pay. He never kicked me out. He never said I had to get out of the club or anything, but there was no job. And it took me, um, probably, um, another two years three, another three years at least before I got a job. I mean, I got jobs like the cops would say, You have to get a job. You've got a week to get a job or whatever you have for ID and disorderly, because that's was what they used to. I got put in jail the very first time for idling, [00:40:30] disorderly, and they shouldn't have done it because I was in somebody's house, and that's illegal Idling. Disorderly is when you're in a public place, not in someone's private in someone's home, whether it's rented or what. But anyway, I got a month's jail was Easter Thursday night. We got pinched. The other queen and the other girl had been, was head up for receiving stolen goods. I don't know whether it was a TV or what it was, and they knew I didn't live there because they knew me. So they arrested me for idle and disorderly, which [00:41:00] I never knew until it was too late. That was and I had no judge, no nothing. And we were there Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And it was full of drunk people from ID being idle, disorderly and drunk and disorderly. And because people used to come from all the country areas like Gisborne and all that, And I mean in those days, it took you a whole day to get from a things to here because it was all gravel roads and people come down and get pissed, and it's not like living in the country. Fall asleep in a doorway and they get arrested. Well, the the lock [00:41:30] ups were overflowing, so they had to bring in a justice of peace on Easter Sunday, and he had to miss his Easter Sunday lunch. Well, he wasn't at all happy and he was popping everybody in jail and I knew nothing about my own reconnaissance or anything. So, um, that's yeah. So I ended up doing a month. That was the only time I ever was actually sentenced to jail. And I was going to kill myself because the the the lock up the lock up, let me tell you, at central was disgusting. Your slime used [00:42:00] to run down the walls. You had to pee in a bucket that was black. But in those days, the dye of the black came out of the plastic because they didn't know how to do it properly and everything. There were these buckets that were half black and half white, and, um and it was it was horrible. And someone said, Oh, jails. Mount Crawford is worse than that. And I thought, Oh, my God, I'm gonna kill myself. Well, I got to Mount Crawford. It was like going to hospital. It was perfect. It was It was better than the bloody lock up. Let me tell you, it was clean and cream and green and like, but like the hospitals [00:42:30] and you know, the only thing is I now am a bit agoraphobic in very small spaces. That's what being locked in a cell did to me. I. I tend if I go to a toilet or something and it's small, I tend to leave the door open or make it very quick. Exit I. I find I. I Yeah, I find that that's that's what it's done to me. It's made me a bit. Feel a bit agoraphobic in very small places. I mean, I can deal with it. It's not not a bad thing, but it. Yeah, I notice I do. I get a bit, you know, leave [00:43:00] the door open. Sort of thing in in jail. Were you treated? How were you treated? Fabulously. I mean, they say to you, Would you like to have been put in a girl? A woman's prison? Yeah, I would have. But then again, it's like sending, like sending a prostitute to a to a, um, to to a house full of clients. I mean, you know, there was guys. They were guys, they had no girls. And most of the queens that that had been pinched before me. A lot of them were were [00:43:30] weren't very so they were sort of stuck up because they didn't know how. Whereas I, I just knew how to talk to people. I've always been a person's person, so I've always been able to talk. So I just went in. Then it was just me and got on perfectly. I mean, I never, ever smoked a roll, your own cigarette and the whole time I was in there and every time I got into trouble with the police, I'd get a I'd get a fine, and in the end, I'd have to go to prison to pay for that. Fine. You see, So they always put me back in the same cell and [00:44:00] I always got packets of cigarettes given to me. Um, I got chocolate cake and coffee at night and all sorts of things handed through the window. I was spoiled in jail, very spoiled, even even, um, the governor. Governor Gorman. I wouldn't wear the shoes. They were the of things. And he said, But you you can't, um, have, um, basketball boots because you're not being sentenced to over a month. [00:44:30] You know, you can't have gym boots, and then I said, Well, I'm not wearing them. I go bare feet and he said, Well, you'll just get thrown into the digger And so I said, Well, you can throw me in the digger. So and then he gave me, um he gave me, um, gym boots to wear. Another time I got thrown in the digger for something and the guys, which is which is the under the ground. And you had a a cage that you walked into to do your You didn't come out of this pad. This cell was completely dark. And during [00:45:00] the day, you got out for an hour to stand walk around this cage and I was walking around and the boys were going off to to weed the gardens Veggie gardens, saw me and went on strike and sat on all the way out buildings and refused to work. So they had to let me out of the out of the digger because the boys refused to go to work. Do you let Sally out? They used to call me Sally in jail long to Sally, and the digger was what kind of a nice, um, the dungeon under the ground. You go to the dungeon, [00:45:30] you know, which is No windows, nothing dark. And I was down there for, like, a day and a bit, because the bit the bit was when I was out walking and they saw me and the boys all went on strike and sat on the houses and sheds and refused to do their work. So next thing, uh, acting supervisor, because the other Mr Gorman was away and he shoved me in there and he had let me out. Got in touch with Mr Gorman. Mr. Gorman said, Let it let him out. Let [00:46:00] her out. They all call me. She in there. Did your mother ever come looking for you? Um, yes, she did. Not in Wellington because she didn't know I was in. Well, she did know I was in Wellington because every time I got into trouble, it was in the paper, and my auntie that lived in Main Street would cut it out and send it to my other auntie just to be a bitch. And she was bisexually bloody self, but with hidden it from the family, I sprung that not long after I was here and her husband was bisexually was going with one of the girls that I knew [00:46:30] he was a taxi driver. But anyway, um, she never found me. She never She once in Auckland, she found me Not long after I'd run away and was growling at me and yelling at me in the car, and I just got out and walked away and bawling, and she's trying to make me get in the car. And I just refused. I just kept walking and she had and then I just just took off. Ran away again. So when I was after I turned 21 I might have been 22 or something. [00:47:00] I wrote to her and I said, Well, you know, Mum, I've always been a sissy. Well, I, I left home because I was a sissy. Well, I tried to be a man that didn't work. I've lived and worked as a woman all my life since, and I hope to have a sex change. If you don't want anything to do with me, I will understand. But I needed to tell you this, and she wrote me a letter back. I still got it. And, um, it said the last time she called me Darryl and the last time she put in front of [00:47:30] the envelope the news about yourself. As you know, I'm not a liar, and the news about yourself came as quite a shock to me. But as I've always said to you, you're big enough and ugly enough to look after yourself so you can live your life as you see fit. It's your business, it's your life. And then she answered all the questions about Auntie Phil and all the people I want to know. And next thing she was down a month later, knocking on the front door 224, Adelaide Road. And, um, this girl came up and said, Oh, there's this lovely blonde [00:48:00] lady downstairs, plump blonde lady at the front door, she says. She's very beautiful and she's asking for you. And I went, Oh, she's this lady's downstairs asking for you. I said, Is she blond? Yes, and very beautiful. And I said, Oh, that's my mum and I had rollers in my hair because every night I used to go home from work and do my I was working for I was working for Christine. Do my hair and rollers and puts it. Didn't matter how pissed I was. I had to do do the hair and roll it And, um, I was [00:48:30] on hormones. I started them in 60 65 when I was 19. Uh, these girls came from Australia, these girls and they had boobs, and I wanted to know what it was. And I found out what it was, um, by going home with Natalie and and I was the first in New Zealand to get hormones, and it was across the road. And Doctor used to be in that that house across the road where we used to be once the HDP and the NZ [00:49:00] PC and I came down from Adams Terrace around the corner. I smoke cigarettes smoking cigarettes and then went in and asked for from him. And he said to me, Oh, you know what they do. I said, Just to give you and he goes, No, and they can give you thromb bases and they can. I said, Yeah, that's alright. And I started that you had to pay to go to the doctor and you had to pay for the hormones in those days. And that was in 1965. I was 19, and, um [00:49:30] so I wasn't working Then. I didn't start work for Chris until 1967. I was 21. So it was quite a few years between, um, working for manual and getting a job, another job. And then once I got the job with Chris and Prod, I never took a night off. I never not went to work and improve my worth, you know? And then from then on, I always had and had no problem getting [00:50:00] a job. But up until then and the police used to say, You don't get a job within a week, we we'll we'll arrest you. So you'd go and you'd find a job, and you'd usually get a job as a store man because that's any job that you could get because of your hair and long hair and all that was the thing. And then they'd bring it up, bring up the job and say, Oh, did you know that you got a working for you or a thief or a whatever? Because I'd stolen food and I'd stolen things to survive, you know, and got pinched for them. Yeah, I'd stolen from [00:50:30] food from shops, stolen stockings? Yeah, and got arrested for those sorts of things. And of course so And then they would wait. Maybe a month sometimes. And then you think you're home and home. So I've got a job. At least I got some. Oh, next thing could you go to the office, please? Go to the office. Oh, I. I heard you're a homosexual. I said no. I'm not a homosexual. Well, the police have told me you're a thieving homosexual. We don't want people like you here, I said, but I'm not a homosexual. Yes, I did steal. That was because I couldn't get a job and it was survival. But [00:51:00] the last one was that, um I was still I was there for nearly two months, and I really enjoyed the job. Was, um, Gordon and go and um and then my girlfriend and I decided we would go. We go to the Dole office, which used to be in to Street, which is the old Dole office from the thirties. And they never had the dole in those days. You didn't get the dole. They got found [00:51:30] you a job and they found us and we wanted a job, so they found us. There was no job, so But they found us a job in tobacco picking. And that's where we went. And I was there in 1967 for the whole of 67. And that was the year I turned 21. And that's the year the dollar came in and I was a in the 19 sixties. What was it like to find clothing? Where Where did you get your clothes? Um, well, there was a lady by the name [00:52:00] of Sylvia who had a secondhand shop in Ridd Street just before you get to the lights. And she, um I stumbled upon her one day. Um, she was an English lady, went in there and I was looking at her. She said, Oh, you like that? I said, Oh, yes, but it needs altering. She said, Oh, I do alteration. So she I started going to her like everybody I I used to. If I went somewhere and they were nice to me, I would tell all the other girls, so I So in the end, she became very rich through us. We all used to go to her [00:52:30] and then all the ships used to go there. And all the the the girls prostitutes used to go there and all all the all the lesbians. But lesbians used to go there and get their suits and everything, you know, and she would alter it to fit you and everything. And yeah, that's how. And you bought bought them as well from the shots. But you had to be careful. Some shots wouldn't allow you in the door, you know. No, no, you can't come in here and try anything on. We don't have your sort in here. Yeah, it was. That was what it was like in those days. What about like in Auckland? When? When you were a wee bit younger. [00:53:00] Where did you get clothes from friends? No, I never bought anything in shops then. Not when I was young. No. Got them from friends. The friends I live with, they give me some clothes, you know? And I did have a little stash I'd stashed up. Yeah, so yeah. Um, but yeah. You know, you've said ship mall a number of times. What's the ship mall? You see, younger people don't know what that is. I've actually done a thing on [00:53:30] that for professor from Auckland University about Backslang because we used to speak gibberish. Backslang you, You know, I'm going to the ship, uh, or, you know, put an end in it somewhere along the line, and they don't do that anymore. They don't use that. And so he's made a lexicon about it. It's online. Um, and ship malls were girls that used to with it. That was the name that was given to them. And they were the girls that used to go on [00:54:00] the ships When the Because you got to remember, in the old days, ships had a big crew. They had a big crew that looked after the ship, plus unloading and reloading. And you had, um, stewards that looked after the officers. Nowadays, you're lucky if you've got four people on the ship because they're containers. Whereas everything was loaded by, uh, a devi, you know, or a crane, a hand done, crane or someone sat in a train on the wharf very different. Now it's all automated, and [00:54:30] these girls used to go meet these guys in the bistro bar, which was the old royal oak downstairs or whatever. And they were seamen, and these girls would we would meet them and the whole time. See, people used to think they were prostitutes, but really, they they weren't. They were more escorts. And even then, it was an unsaid thing with the guys that if a girl went on board with you or stayed with you the time you were in port or followed you around New Zealand, then you paid their rent and their bills [00:55:00] and supply food and drinks, and that's what happened. So they weren't really prostitutes. They went with the guy because they liked him. They didn't just go with him for the money. They went with the guy because they liked him. And that was the That was the what you got. If you went with the guy, it was uncertain things seamen would pay for your rent and they would because you weren't working. You see, because you're on the ship with them 24 7 or an on shore at the [00:55:30] pub or whatever, or they go back to your place every now and then. They might want to come off if they had the weekend off to come off and stay at your place so they would pay for your food. They pay for your rent and pay any bills that you had. And then they'd pay for your drinks on board the ship and pay. And all your meals were free on the ships. And so, you know, and that's what what ship malls were. But people presume they were They were prostitutes because they received something in return for being the girlfriend. You know what I mean? You didn't even really have [00:56:00] to have sex with them. They would still do it anyway. You know, it was just the law of the of the seamen. They did it anyway, but there's no longer ship malls. Hasn't been ship males, I don't know since I left in 76 and it was dwindling even then. You know, I don't think there's been ship malls for at least 20 years. And of course, backslang is gone as well now. And that was a thing that was often used on the ship was gibberish and back slang, you know, And you also had your you also had your, um, English [00:56:30] backslang, which was they would say, Um um I'm we wanna go down. The, uh I'm I'm off down the frog and toad jump in the jam jar, which was down the road Jump in the car And, uh and you know, my What would they call it? Um, my Gordon. And go on the Oliver Twist was your watch on your wrist? Um [00:57:00] uh, i'll have an Alice in Durban, which was, which was a bourbon, um, apples and pears with the stairs going up the apples and pears to crack it for a chat, You know, to go and have a talk, you know, um, or things like that. You know, they had their back slang that came from England as well. A rhyming slang. There was, um so, yeah, that's things are very different now. Very, very different. Very good. It's very different. Very [00:57:30] wonderful. But it was It was You know, I used to say I wouldn't wish this life upon my worst enemy because until I went to Australia and got the money to go and have my sex change, life was very, very hard. I worked three straight jobs and still cracked it on a Sunday on my day off to go out and get pissed because by the time you paid your rent and paid your food and paid all your bills, lucky to have $3 left at the end of the week. And I had three jobs. Went to the new City hotel as a as a kitchen [00:58:00] hand and then a barmaid and a waitress, and then went after that at 11 o'clock at night and worked in in the Sunset Strip or one of those places. And in the nightclub was a waitress till three or four in the morning. And I'd still only have about $3 at the end of the week. So there was like, you know, it was just just seemed impossible, you know, to get ahead to get the money or anything for it. You know, to thought the thought of having a sex change, getting money for it was just almost impossible, You know? How much [00:58:30] would it have cost in those days? Um, well, I don't know. To be honest, they were doing I had been pursuing it for many years. I was the first to be to be passed in New Zealand for a sex change by the Wellington Hospital Board. Um which went as far as up, I think nearly as far as Hastings and Wellington Hospital. I did get passed by them eventually. That was within the interference of, um, [00:59:00] Victoria University that my mother got in touch with when? After my mum came to stay with me after I got together with my mother, um, back again and went home and she'd come down one Christmas and after Christmas and one after Christmas, I'd go to her and I'd bring pay for her to come down the next. Anyway, one year she was down and I was. I parted from my boyfriend when I was living in a bed set right opposite Salamanca Road on the terrace, and Mum said to me, What are all these people? Different nationalities? [00:59:30] Getting off the buses, walking up Salamanca Road? I said, Oh, they're going to the university And she said, Oh, give me the phone book about half an hour I give her the phone book and she rings up the university. She says, I want to speak to the head psychiatrist, and I thought, Oh my God, she's gonna do something. But of course I knew she couldn't. I was over 21. And she said that I have a daughter who isn't my daughter. That should be my daughter and I want to do something about her. And he said, Well, can you get a, um, a referral from your GP and come and see me? She said, What time This afternoon? He said, [01:00:00] Gosh, you're pushing it She said, Well, I'm back to Auckland next week She said, I want to get the ball rolling So we went to my doctor, got a certificate and went straight up that afternoon and saw this guy and he was wonderful. He was really, really good. He was the first light. That's everyone else had been so down on me, like I didn't realise that I was going and lying on a cadaver table at the Wellington Hospital at the They had me [01:00:30] in the, um, the psychos, whatever it is, uh, psych, psych, psychiatric part. But a psychiatric part also had a part where they did investigations on the brain and everything. So they had a caver table and they put a sheet over it and used to shove me on that with nothing on and a sheet over me and every man and his dog used to come in and touch me and look at me. It was absolutely horrendous. I should just lie there with the tears rolling down my face because I absolutely hated anybody looking at me down there. [01:01:00] And, um, the guy would hit a hole in the wall and he had these big, real tapes and he was talking about me having abnormal testes and no, no muscles like a female. Or is it? But they always used to come out and say, Well, our advice to you is go home and put on your shorts and have a good game of football because you'll never be a woman. You'll be a drag on society, a dragon, maybe darling, but not on society. And the more they said that, the more it made me determined that they were. But I mean, it used to absolutely gut me. I'd [01:01:30] go home absolutely gutted and bawling and name after my and I've been doing that for Oh, well, about, UM, 17, 18, 1920 2022 about six or seven years before my mother came. And then when Mum came and she got in touch with him, and then they started to take notice. I know. I was passed. I was the first to be passed to have a sex change when they got a free clinic because I was physically and mentally female except for my genitalia. [01:02:00] And I mean, to this day, they don't have a free C cleaner, You know, they do two a year, maybe. You know, I did have two appointments to go to. To have it both times. Something happened. It wasn't meant to be. I wasn't meant to have it there. I was meant to go to Cairo. It was meant to be. I was at home there, you know? Yes. So, um yeah, IIII. I went to Australia when I went to Australia. That was when life changed for me. What year were you passed? 70 [01:02:30] 70 71 or something like that? Before my mother died because mum died in 72. And that was the first time in New Zealand that somebody had been passed, passed for a sec. You know, given the hospital board had passed somebody. Yeah, yeah, that was the first time. And, um and then I went to Australia in 76 and they passed me in a month with all my New Zealand papers. That said, I'd have to wait [01:03:00] for two or three years because I was a New Zealand citizen. But I didn't realise until many years later when I spoke to one of the psych psychologists and he said, and he happened to let it drop that yes, we were remiss. And that, and and and not allowing people of your height to, um have to be passed. So there again, I was hampered over there, not by being a New Zealand citizen. That's what they used was because I was too tall as far as they were concerned. [01:03:30] Yeah, why would that have made a difference? Being tall or as far as they were concerned, you wouldn't fit in, you know, to the to them you had to be able to fit in as if you know it didn't care whether it was they didn't care. Whether it what made you happy. It's what made them happy. And what made them happy was somebody they could put into society. That was unspin. This is how they spoke. You must and get rid of all your past life and all the friends that you've [01:04:00] had, which I could never understand because my friends, I've still got them 30 40 50 60 years later, I've still got the same friends. You must get rid of them. And you must never admit ever that you were what you were. You never admit it to anybody. And I said, you're a psychiatrist and you're telling me that I should be saying these things. How can you love somebody and want to spend your life with somebody? And you don't tell them your past or no. If you do, you'll always be [01:04:30] thwarted. And I said, Well, so say love. I could not possibly, um, spend my life with someone telling a lie. Well, you have to. They that was and and that that and that still, I think, is their their motto. You you never admit to it. You never say that you've you know And they wanted me to have voice lessons and all the rest of it. I. I just want to change what's down there. I don't want to change anything else. I'm happy with who I am. It's you that's unhappy, [01:05:00] not me. I'm only happy with what's between my legs. You're the one that's unhappy. The rest of me. I'm happy. I've got lots of boyfriends. I. I didn't want to say I make heaps of money. But I was, you know, because I was by then working as a prostitute in the brothel of my own. It was my own and turning up to these to, um this is before it became, um, Monash. They were doing it at, um, Roy the Royal, the Royal Hospital Royal, the Royal Hospital in [01:05:30] in Royal Melbourne. And there was a guy who actually was, uh, who was who got head up for per through the windows and masturbating at us girls in our homes. I mean, please ask yourself, you know, they didn't want to give me a sex change, but they allowed someone like that to go on to be a counsellor for people. Uh, you know where where is he? He wouldn't pass me because I was too tall, you know, I just didn't understand how I found out is my friend of mine was murdered, [01:06:00] and I went to open the book launch for the author that did the book. Um um and she was murdered and what they found her found her 17 years later here, years later, in a mine shaft she said was a Kiwi girl. And, uh, this woman, um, her name was Robin Bowles. Wrote a book, um, justice the night about her. And, um, II I opened, you know, I did a did a talk for it. And, [01:06:30] uh yeah, and the psychologist was there with a girlfriend of mine, and he said, Oh, who's she? And at the time, I was working as a receptionist and I was the first in Melbourne to get the licences. So change the licence changed. So I could be a relieving because you had to tell them a week before you were, um, reception where you were going and all the rest of it because you had a licence. So you had to be a licence. And anyway, I got this them to change it so I could be relieving and go and help people [01:07:00] when they, you know, went just one holiday. And I also opened brothels for people, um, and got all the store and got it all going and moving. And, you know, I knew all the outlets to get towels and where to send them to be washed. And we had to buy this and we had to buy that. And the I was the first to get a doctor to come to check the girls from the Burnet Centre and and and, um, in Melbourne And, um so I was quite well sought [01:07:30] after. And I had come from opening this just opening this brothel, and I was in a black suit and everything in my briefcase and all my stuff, and he was quite taken by me, you know? And he said, You know, Um oh, who is she? She's fantastic. And and and, um, Samantha said, Oh, that's a good friend of mine. Her name's Dany said, Oh, could you introduce me to her? And, um So I was introduced to him and he said to me, We didn't do you, did we? And I said, No, you didn't. I was done in Egypt, I said, and I was told if I went there, you'd have nothing to do with me. [01:08:00] And I said, And I said I didn't couldn't care less and he said No. And that's where he said, you know, In hindsight, we we were remiss and not granting permission for people of your statue and height to, um to to have the sex change, he said. Because you're just amazing. He said, You're exactly what I'd like to put up and show what can happen to somebody. And he wanted me to join the board and everything. You know? I said, Well, you're too late. I'll be leaving soon and going back to New Zealand. [01:08:30] But he wanted me to join the board. He's now passed away, and he was on there for years. He was a real ward. He actually came on after I. I was had gone through the board. He came along a little about a year or so later, you know. But, um, he was a German man. He was fantastic. He was the only one on the board that stood up for the girls and and saying he wanted them to change the birth certificates and change the passports. The others. All they were interested in was making money out of us, you know? [01:09:00] So you had to travel to Egypt to I went to Egypt. Yeah, I did. I didn't have to, but I did because I wasn't waiting any longer. I promised myself within the year of leaving New Zealand, I would have it. And if I didn't? I was. It wasn't I wasn't gonna worry about it. For 17 years of my life, it had been the bane of my life Trying to get the sex change. I was 30 I still hadn't got it, you know? And so I had girlfriends that had been to Cairo, uh, to Professor Bahari. And so I just I had already I'd written to lots of doctors [01:09:30] and, um, I went to him. I went, uh, I arrived the first of March 1976 and at 11:30 p.m. first of March 1976 in Tuam Marine Airport in me, uh, Melbourne and I had my sea change on the 27th of February 1977 in Cairo, Egypt, Exactly within the year that I wanted to do everything and, um, best thing they ever did. Best place I ever went to it was meant to be because [01:10:00] as a kid, that was the only butch thing I used to do except be a cowboy because I had chaps on I could pretend they were a skirt, but I used to put on this sheet and my father's, um, dressing gown cord. You know how they tassels and that and wrap it around the sheet and get on the Put the cat under one arm and get on the straw broom and tend I was on a came on and it was a shake of a That was the only thing I sort of did, but because it could have all this flowing sheet around me, you see. So when I and by the time I got there, I also learned a bit of Arabic and [01:10:30] being a prostitute, you learn lots of languages. And because I could I had learned Maori when I was young, even though I lost a lot of it, I still was able to pick up languages very easy so I could speak quite a bit of a, uh, Arabic when I got there. You know, I knew how to say different things and get different things, and and, um, understood, you know? So it was easy peasy for me. It was the best place I could ever have gone. I was was just one and they treated you wonderfully over there. They didn't treat you like freaks. They treated [01:11:00] you like Allah had made a great big mistake. That's what they say or Allah make big mistake. How can a Allah must? It's very strange from your country. All these beautiful girls come and Allah make big mistake with these girls. That's what the people used to say in the hospital. They just couldn't see that we were boys at any time, you know at all it just, you know, and there's heaps of us. New Zealand girls went there and Aussie girls went to in the seventies. And [01:11:30] he was a fabulous man. Absolutely fantastic made you feel so at ease and so wonderful. And and it was the best thing I had to walk to theatre. You had to walk to theatre. That was another part of his, you know, like he said to me when I arrived and arrived in the morning. I left on a Saturday and arrived on a Saturday morning, and, um, he met him in his office and he said that they'll take you to your room and and you get undressed, he said, and put on your night and get to bed, you know? So I got [01:12:00] into the bed and he said straight away, he knew I'd had a boob job. Um, And then as he was walking away, I said to him, Oh, II I should tell you, I have He said, I know you're going to say asthma. I said, yes, I've got asthma and he said, I know this already, and and he he was He was just amazing, amazing man. And I actually lost my asthma. But after I had my change, I got a little bit now, but I never had it near as bad From the moment I left [01:12:30] home, it got better and better and better, except for Wellington, because it was so damp in the winter. I used to get a bit sick sometimes, but, um, Wellington was better than Auckland for me with my asthma. And so he knew that he was just amazing. And I said, Oh, I've got um um prostate. I you don't have to I know this. He said he was just amazing. And I said to him, Oh, good. Can you tell me what it's gonna be like or he said. And this is the wonderful thing he said to me. He said, Um, he always called me demilo He said to me, um demilo, [01:13:00] there's nothing I can tell you. You're already there I said, What do you mean? He said, You are already there. This will be just a little a little thing that will just carry you on your way And I said, I don't understand. He said, Well, I tell you, I have one coming from Queensland who's a millionaire who's in his fifties and has done dressed as a woman on weekends, only has a grown up family, and he said, and I am going to do this [01:13:30] operation because he wants it so badly. But I believe and he was the only one that he called. He was her and he was. He said, I believe within a year he will be dead because he has not lived as a woman. He's not lived amongst anybody as a woman. And it was true. He was a multi millionaire at a pink farm and a fucking cow farm. He owned a um um what do you call them? A AAA dress shop? You know, a boutique [01:14:00] he had, uh he was just loaded. He had two, adopted Children and a wife and their Children had grown up and given them a farm. Each he had he had everything set out, but within the year. So he went back on the farm as a woman and no one had ever dealt with him as a woman. It was too big a shock people couldn't understand. And he expected everybody to just accept him as Jackie the woman. And they couldn't. It was Jack the man that that he hadn't even transitioned. I mean, yes, he did. He used to fly to [01:14:30] Sydney every weekend. He had his own plane and dress up all weekend on and go out in Sydney. But he never actually transitioned. And where he came from in Queensland and and I found out a year later he did die. He did kill himself. So Bahari was right. I said, Well, why are you going to do it? He said, if I don't want somebody else with he said, But that is the difference between you and this person. And I knew exactly what he said because I went out with her and another two girls. There was [01:15:00] already one girl there from Sydney, and another one came as a nurse and she'd been a a male nurse but transitioned at her job. And they accepted her at a private hospital in Sydney. And her name was Jackie, too, funnily enough, and she'd answered an ad in the paper saying that a person there was a person wanting to go to Egypt, to Cairo for an operation, and she knew exactly what it was because she'd been there herself. And funnily enough, she'd had a little bit of trouble. She had a scar on the inside of her vagina, and she was going to have it fixed, which Bahari fixed it for nothing for her [01:15:30] when he found out because she'd had a little bit of an infection and they had to have her anyway, and she he wouldn't accept the money she wanted to pay him with the money that she got from going with Jackie. And then there was another girl there already before, and her name was Laura, and she'd been there six days before me from Sydney. And anyway, when I got out of bed after we were 10 days in bed. You see, after I got out, they we decided we were going out for lunch and we were going to the Hilton Hotel for lunch. And this other the one from Queensland. I must. [01:16:00] She looked like a woman. She was a little bit horsey. I beautiful eyes, beautiful colour, grey hair, natural. She looked like one of those top those women that have got money from America. You know, those ones are a bit horsey looking, you know, until she opened her mouth and and the way she walked a bit, too. And we get to the Hilton Hotel and I'll never forget. And the guy's pushing in her chair to sort of sit down the waiter and she goes, Oh, I can't wait to have a fucking good steak And [01:16:30] I just about fell through the seat and I just and I remember what he said. You know that that that I was there and and there's this person older than me and everything and should be wiser than I was and wasn't at all you know. So I understood exactly what he meant, But at the beginning, when he first said it, I didn't understand when he kept saying that. But you are there, you know? So that was to me. Later, I realised that was a great compliment that he paid me, you know, saying you are already there. There's nothing for me to tell you. It'll be just feelings [01:17:00] as such. He says, just feelings as such will be different. So did you travel to Egypt by yourself? Yeah, I did. Um, I intended. Yeah, I'd intended to. Well, I was somebody who was going to come with me at one part of it, but I'd already booked by by myself and everything. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I was was nothing gonna stop me. And she was supposed to come and her mother got hurt, and she came back to New Zealand and her brother got killed and her mother was in hospital. This girl and she [01:17:30] arrived back two days before I was ready to go to, and she begged me to wait one more week and she said, And I'll have the money to go. And I said, No, no, no way. I nothing will stop me. This is this booked. Everything is there, and there's no way I'm stopping for anybody, and I Yeah, and I left. I went on my own, but it was fantastic. I mean, there was all other girls that had been before me, so I knew a lot about it, you know? So I knew about it, and, um, and Professor Bahari was just amazing and sister [01:18:00] and that they were just amazing people. Just amazing. And it's funny, you know, he had a granddaughter. I knew that he had a son that was a dentist. And he had a daughter that was a doctor. And she became a professor and do and he became the son was a professor in dentistry. And I got a phone call from Australia a couple of years ago before, and it was a friend of mine who had her changed before me by the name of. And this girl had got in touch with her and and she was actually Baha. Excuse me, Bahari's granddaughter, [01:18:30] And she was a gay girl. And it had T tweaked her her imagination. They had found in his drawer in his desk when he died. He died when he was 80. So it was 60 something when he didn't mean and they didn't know that he'd been doing sex change operations. And yet they used to announce us on the radio and everything and say, Oh, special guests from Australia or wherever. Professor Bahay special guest, you know, and they'd play the bloody tiny kangaroo down. And I said, I'm not [01:19:00] an Aussie. I'm a And they played an Aussie out. But anyway, um uh, yeah, she said they never knew that he'd done these operations. He'd only done one Egyptian girl, and he didn't introduce me to her and his his That's a whole story on its own. Egypt. It was amazing. And, um and she got in touch with with Henny and Henny got in touch with me and she was going to do it, um, going to do a, um, a documentary on him because [01:19:30] she found all the letters and photos in his drawer and they didn't know and I said, Oh, well, I knew that he had about a mother. I said, uh, a doctor, a daughter that was a doctor and a professor. And I knew that he had a son that was a dentist and a profession. Oh, yes, the the daughter is my mother and, um and she said we knew nothing about it, But we read all these beautiful letters and saw all these photos and things, she said. And it's, you know, And so I wanted to do [01:20:00] a documentary about him because they did not know that he did those sort of operations. They knew about him that he was quite He was very famous plastic surgeon, uh, and reconstructive surgeon. He did a lot of that, but they didn't know that he'd been doing sex changes as well. He was doing them for 10 years before I went and he told me how he first started and everything. It's very amazing about his story and I. I was there for longer than usual because they were at the time they were having the trouble with Israel. And [01:20:30] like we're having now and and, um, I met and everything through through through Bahari. He took me to house and I, and they were having at the time, the first Arab summit meeting ever for the a E, which is the UAE United Arab Emirates and what's his name? Muldoon was there, and I met Muldoon, and he was told to watch his mouth and keep his hands to himself and in Egypt, because he you [01:21:00] know, he's a bit loud and touching women and that, and it was just unheard of in those days, you know? And he introduced me to him, and he said to me, he said, Oh, this demilo de Milo. This is a man from your country. His name is Robert Muldoon. I said I know who he is. I'd actually voted for the first time in my life was when I was voting against him. And I left the country not long after he got in, actually, um, the next year he got it at the end of I think, like November or December, whenever it is. And the next year [01:21:30] I left and he said to me, Oh, and he goes, This is This is this is And when did you leave New Zealand? I said when you got into power and he went on but sign it and then went for about 10 or 15 20 minutes. And he goes, And when do you think you will be going back to New Zealand? And I said when you get out of power, please Excuse me. I'm just going to power to my nose. I do hope you'll find another seat by the time I return. I didn't want to sit next to her. And when I came back to Harris pushing my chair and he goes to Milo, you were very hard on him. [01:22:00] I said, Well, put it this way. Did you like NASA? He said, Oh, I understand perfectly. I said I I'll have another martini, please. With two olives. He was gone When I come back. Yeah. You know, I didn't want to talk to him. I didn't like him, But actually, I got to like him. The longer I was away, the more I got to like him. You see, I didn't because I'm very maori orientated because I grew up with them. And, um and he when he said, we're gonna send the Maori kids back to [01:22:30] the everybody took Umbridge and that and yet he was right. He was right. We all took Umbridge at that. We all said, Oh, how dare you say that. And now when you look back on it, he was right. Because if you had sent those kids home to the marae the elders would have made sure that they behaved themselves. So he actually was right. But at the time we were We were all because he was because it was his. It was his. It was his abrasive ways as well, I think because actually, [01:23:00] he ended up being liked by all of the Maori in the end, you know, and the gangs and all and and and and the guys on the bikes and all the rest of it, they quite respected him because he was he actually was better than you. It was just his obtrusive way about him, you know? He was Yeah, but, um yeah. So that was another story when I was there meeting him, you know, and I met Amma Sadat and he told me he would be murdered. He said I would not be surprised if I'm not assassinated. [01:23:30] And I said Why? He said, because I'm brokering peace between Egypt and Israel, and I will be hated by my Arab neighbours. But I do not want my country in turmoil. And at the time I only saw two beggars on the street. All the rest of them he got That was the first place I'd ever seen people washing windows of cars. Now, this is 1977 and they would wash your windows with a rag and a bucket, [01:24:00] and you paid them if you wanted to. If you didn't, they didn't harass you for it. You bought Lily of the Valley on a little cord that you put around your neck. They made fans out of the frogs of the palms and put it together with stringy stuff they made from out of palms and that and made rope like we make it out of a. They made it out of their way. And they made little fans that were all cut out. You could buy for, like, a PS, that which is like half a cent, you know, it was very cheap. Um, [01:24:30] in the valley, they they were all selling, making things and selling them. That's what had done. He wanted people. They might be poor, but you don't have to just sit there with your hand out to try and do something to make your make money. And I saw one old lady that was half blind with a baby, and I saw a blind man and I was actually at Giza the pyramids, and I was sitting in the car and this blind man was feeling his way around the cars. [01:25:00] And as he was coming towards the back of our car, the driver wound the window up and the guy came and I went to speak to me and the guy went past. And then I said to him, Why did you tell me to be quiet? He said I didn't want him to hear me And I said, Well, why wouldn't you give him some but means money, you know? And he said, because we don't believe in giving unless you can give for life cos I wouldn't give to them either. Cos I used to see these Yanks, you know? And this yank you went Oh, on, honey, Throw them a few bucks. She throw [01:25:30] them a few dollars, honey, you know, And I thought, Oh, how to meaning, You know, they were they how they yell and talk. And I thought, Oh, how to meaning bad enough being poor and asking for it. Never mind about Oh, honey, Chuck on a few pastors, you know? And I thought, Oh, I don't want to do that. II. I just feel that's and him saying to me, We don't believe in giving unless we can give for the rest of their lives I understood immediately, he said. We exactly like me. If I'd lived [01:26:00] there, I would have taken them home and said, Come on, you can be my gardener. You can do this and I'll feed you And you can sleep in that room there for nothing, you know? And that's what people did. They they became because not very many. There was no houses On one level, they're all 12345 levels and you have a gate, man. A man looks after the gate at a certain time of night. He shuts it, you know, and all that. And when you come home, you give them a couple of fiestas or a fiesta or something for opening the gate for you or something, you know. And, um so I And he said we will only be believe, believe, he [01:26:30] said, because he's he's hungry, but not as hungry as he was. And if I give him money for food, he will be hungry like he was before. In other words. What he was meaning was to give him something to eat will make him full again. And then he'll go through all that pain of being hungry again and starving again until he gets to a stage where he's no longer feeling hungry. And I thought, Yeah, that's what I. I like that idea. It's better to take somebody [01:27:00] in than chuck them a few dollars because you're really not helping and you're only exasperating it on by just it's only feeding them for one day. Um, it's not getting them out of, and they might go for another week without a feed, because the the Arabs themselves don't give money. They do not give. It's the it's the tourists that give money and and the same as when you go to to Giza, where the where the pyramids are, those people with all the camels [01:27:30] and that they're rolling in it. You think they're poor and they're not poor at all. They're rich, and I was told that by the same guy in the car, he said to me, see them? He said they got more money than than than you or I put together. He said, You don't think they have, but they have. He said they've all got nice houses and cars and everything. He said they make lots of money being here at this tourist spot, So Yes. Yeah. So, yeah, that was That was I. I loved it. Loved it. So was Egypt [01:28:00] in the operation? Was it as you were saying, Just a small thing, or was it a a big change for you? You know, when the the doctor was saying to you Oh, this is just a It was a small change for me. How did you feel? I didn't Uh uh Well, going to the going to have the operation was like, Absolutely I've I never felt euphoria like it in my life because I knew I was going to get what I wanted. What I what I needed and and And I had got to an age. I was 30 [01:28:30] I got to that age knowing that it didn't matter. You don't have a sex change for a man. You don't have it for money. You don't have it for public conception. You have it for yourself. It has to be to make you feel free to make you feel one. I say this to all the girls. If you're doing it for somebody else, don't do it. You must do it because you want it. It's what you want, and it's what you need for your psyche to feel complete. [01:29:00] And I had an injection before I went and I had injections before. They didn't do anything and I was bouncing off the walls. I was so joyous and I was going into all the rooms going, Good morning, you see, which is French? We'll see you later, you know, because they spoke French as well and I walked all the way to theatre and they were all standing and they wear khaki. They don't wear white, it's a okra colour and they're all standing with their because they've all been scrubbed and gloved and they're all standing [01:29:30] with their hands like that. You know, it's very much like you see Egyptian mummies. That's exactly how they were standing, and I had to get on this table and the table was like a little It was a narrow table long and I can remember lying down, and by then my mouth was dry and I was my heart was thumb. I was so excited and the guy said to me, Have you any false tits? And I thought he said tits. And I thought, Oh, they never told me [01:30:00] that. Oh, he's gonna take my tits out. Oh, but they came back with tits and I'm going. I'm going. No. Yes, but you're not taking them. And he said, No, no tits, tits. And he meant teeth. Well, my mouth was so dry he couldn't get them out, but anyway, he got them out. And that's the last I remember. I don't remember. And then I woke up. I remember waking up. I've got photos of me they took of me. When I was, I woke up. I was very cold because he he he couldn't put my legs in stirrups because he was [01:30:30] only he was only a short man himself. He couldn't get past my legs because they were too long. So he had to drop my legs at the bottom. And of course, um, my circulation went on me and everything and I I died on the table. But, you know, they brought me back, but, um, I woke up. I was freezing cold when I came to, I was absolutely freezing, shuddering all over. And I had, like, about 10 hot water bottles and about 14 blankets all over me all piled up and a drip. Yeah, but I was fine. Can I have the key to my drawer? Put my [01:31:00] teeth in and grab my joy and put my back on? I was fine. I was fine. I didn't, uh it was funny. It was like because you're 10 days in bed, Um, and they put me on morphine and morphine made me speed off my tits. I was off my face. I couldn't go to sleep. I was waxing my legs because, you see, having a having anaesthetic makes the hairs on your body going. I was waxing my legs. I was painting my toe out was when my toe would grow and everything. And then on the third day, I was really, really [01:31:30] agro. I was very, um, touchy and uncomfortable. I sore back because I couldn't sleep and all the rest of it and, um and, uh, the nurse came to give me an injection, and And in those days in in Egypt, they still used the glass. Um a glass, um, syringe and a needle on the needle on the end. And she and every morning they'd come in and give me three injections. And this morning she jammed [01:32:00] it into my ass and I fucking hated them, you know? And when I when I'd had other injections, I hadn't injections for years because I love them because I'd had them as a child for penicillin and it was absolutely painful. And when I went to have injections to go overseas, I mean, they were they hardly hurt. They were so fine. And they were disposable, But they didn't have disposable ones at that time over there. And so she jabs me in the arse, and it's stuck there, pulls the syringe off, and the needle is still in there, and she pulls it out and she's sharpening [01:32:30] it on the side of the glass, you know? And I right through the wobbly. No, no, I'm not having any more in Get out. Fair enough. Don't want any more injections. Get Professor Bahari. So he came to see me and I said, I don't want any more needles. I don't need them. He said Oh, but you I said, What are they? He said. One is morphine. I said, Yeah, well, that's why I can't sleep And he said, Why are you allergic to it? I said, I don't know. I've never had it, but I haven't slept for three days. I'm just about going [01:33:00] mad And he said, and I said, What's the other two? He said, one is an antibiotic. I said, Why's that? And you know all the years that I had antibiotics for my asthma and my chest infection, and they never told me I should take multi vitamins and minerals because that's what antibiotics do. They deplete your body, he said, because your body is depleted of minerals and vitamins because of the antibiotics, you have to have them. Never had them, he said. Well, I don't know why you don't get them in Australia, but this is what you must do with antibiotics, and [01:33:30] the other one was that was an antibiotics and the other one was a multivitamin. I said, Well, I don't need them. I don't need that morphine. I'm not in pain. I don't need the antibiotic and I don't need the You can give me those and pills can't you? And he said yes. So they gave me the pills because he said otherwise, you'll get a slight infection. Well, sure enough, Two days later, I had a little slight infection, so he gave me some antibiotics by pills, and it was gone. Just a slight infection around the stitches that didn't even come to anything. It was, you know, and, um so I never [01:34:00] had any needles after that. And he gave me this pill. I'll never forget these pills. They were like horse tablets. And I slept for, uh and I mean, what's her name? Wanted one. she wanted one. Well, it knocked her out for 12 hours, and he knocked me out for five. I was like, a break five hours later, but I was bit for it because I'd had a good sound sleep, you know, but yeah. Um, So, um [01:34:30] and then I came home, but I was lucky I was there for more than usual because of I said, because of and also the Shah of Iran was having the longest reigning monarchy was celebrating that, and they were they were having, um, Queen and Prince Philip were coming and and and an and Charles. And they'd never had all that many, um, Royals together coming out of the country and all the rest. So when I when I went to Egypt all the way along, there were guys with guns on their shoulders, [01:35:00] but no, when I was coming back, they had their gone. All of them had their guns coughed and loaded right through as far as, um, um, Asia. Yeah. And, um but I was there for nearly two months instead of only a month because I couldn't get a plane out. And as it was, I was four days in transit because they could only fly you at night because there was no fighting at night in those days. And so they would fly you at night to the nearest destination [01:35:30] and you'd stay there and all day you'd sit in the bloody airport until evening and then they'd fly you to the next destination went to and all sorts of places, you know, on the way back, how did the operation change you in terms of kind of within yourself? Made me strong made me become me. I was a finally done of the person I needed to be wanted to be. And I was from then on, I could stand up and say, No, you can't do [01:36:00] this to me. No, I'm not a bad person. No, I'm not gonna take your, you know, like we got jobs. And when we did get jobs working, we got the poorest of wages working in nightclubs and that, and treated like shit. We really did. We I mean, you know, be grateful you got a job, and this is what you get. $17 a week or something, you know, and you work your butt off as a waitress or whatever. I mean, I think the strippers were getting $3 a strip or something. You know, the girls that were strippers? Um, what it did to me, It it completed me. I was complete. [01:36:30] I was to me. I always say Egypt was my birthplace. You know, Cairo was my birthplace. Um, it didn't change the way I felt at all. I felt no different. I'm no different as a person. All my friends will tell you that even the ones that knew me before my change and I'm no different, but it made me stronger. as a person, I began to realise that No, I'm I am good. I'm not a freak. I'm no different to the next person. In fact, I might be better than that person. [01:37:00] And also that I wasn't going to be standing to be pushed around anymore by people. And be just grateful you've given me a job. No, I'm good at my job. And if you don't want to pay me properly, well, I'll go somewhere that will, you know. So I That's what it did for me. It completed me. It made me become who I am, who I am today. I. I don't I don't think I I was any different. I was just a little bit more. I was more timid, you know, Like when somebody yelled out Oh, you're a man. [01:37:30] You, you, you you You felt inside that you were because you still were. Whereas it was years later, somebody said it to me like I think it was like 10 years after I had my change and somebody said you I burst out laughing when they said, Oh, you're a man. You know, I just laughed it. It meant nothing to me. It just rolled off my back like water. Whereas before I had my change, you knew what they were saying was right deep down, even though they didn't know they didn't know they [01:38:00] were only guessing, you know, Like I said, you know, they don't know what's in your pants. Only you know what's in your Nobody else knows. They're just surmising, but because you knew what they're saying was right, that's that You felt bad. You It made you feel dirty. You know, it made you feel like you were. And so after my change, what it did for me was just made me who I be happy. You know, I, I It was the best thing that ever happened to me.

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