chapter ten

rising acceptance

Living on an island like Coll is definitely more difficult than life is on the mainland. Everyday items are more expensive. There is a two-and-three-quarter-hour ferry journey from Oban to get them here, making everything about ten per cent more expensive due to freight costs. So a lot of people have more than one job to make ends meet. I’m no exception – as well as working at the ferry terminal, which I class as my first job, being a full-time employee of the company, I also run a small building-maintenance business covering quite a wide range of work, from joinery to painting and everything in between.

Another sign that people were accepting me as a woman was that they continued to use my services just as they had before – my workload didn’t diminish at all. One of my many clients is Argyll & Bute Council – I do all the maintenance and repairs at the local primary school and at the airport terminal building. As with CalMac, the council had also pledged their full support for me when I was undergoing my sex change, and were happy for me to continue as their local contractor. More importantly, the parents of the children at the school didn’t have any issue with me continuing to work there. But the most amazing thing of all was – and still is – the fact that the children themselves adapted to my change from male to female with complete ease. And now there are a growing number of younger children who have only ever known me as Jules.

As well as working for CalMac and the council, I also do the running maintenance and repairs for Argyll Community Housing Association which owns much of the rented housing on the island. All in all, I am very busy and it is the work ethic that I learned at a young age, as well as my perfectionist nature, that have stood me in good stead.

But it is working at the ferry terminal that means the most to me as it was something I had dreamed of since I first came to the island in the 1960s. Getting my first job there in 1995 was a defining moment for me, another dream come true, and the fact that I’m still doing the job I love, but now as a woman – well, every day I stand on the quay watching the ferry arrive and think just how lucky I am. I mean, how many women get to help dock a six-thousand-tonne ship every day? It is absolutely awesome, and I am passionate about what I do.

I had been living as a woman for about eight months and everything had, so far, been mostly very positive. However, we – meaning everybody concerned with my change – had overlooked one thing, and how we missed it I have no idea. I was still married.

Now that I was a woman, technically I was in a same-sex marriage, and that wasn’t even legal at the time – let alone being anything I might still want to be part of, same sex or not. Many calls were made, and emails sent, to rectify this situation as soon as possible and finally, in January 2005 Anne and I were granted a quickie divorce which finally put things right. And more importantly, it broke, once and for all, another link to my male past.

It was now almost a year since I had begun living as a woman and the doctors at the Sandyford Clinic were happy with my progress. In general, people were getting used to me as a woman, although of course there were one or two glitches in the early days. The Coll islanders had worked hard to try and accept me as a woman, and the same must be said for most of my colleagues at CalMac, but one hiccup was due to the unintentional ignorance of a crew member of one of the ships. No one at the company had ever had to deal with a transgender staff member before, so it wasn’t really surprising that there was the occasional slip-up. I was off duty for a few days and I’d decided to take the ferry to the mainland for a shopping trip. I needed to go to the ladies’ on the ferry, and when I came out of the toilet the chief steward was walking past and said hello. I, of course, greeted him in return and that was that.

When I got back home a few days later, I had a call from our personnel manager at head office. He said that the chief steward had questioned why was I using the ladies’ toilet and suggested that in future I should perhaps use the disabled toilets. I pointed out to him that I was legally female; my passport described me as female and I dressed and looked like a female. Furthermore, I said, my place of employment only had a ladies and a gents toilet. Which one did he want me to use and at what point did he want me to start using the ladies? He didn’t have an answer right away, but the following morning at nine on the dot he called me to say that the company had taken legal and expert advice because they had never had to deal with anything like this before.

He went on, ‘I’m pleased to say we got it wrong. Nothing more will be said about the matter and I apologize on behalf of the company for any distress this episode may have caused you.’ That’s how it was left and there have been no further repercussions.

The other glitch at work was much closer to home. This was an issue in my local office and it was disappointing, to say the least. I had always found women sympathetic to my situation, but now I had a female colleague who seemed constantly to be doing me down: referring to me as ‘he’ and ‘him’. I would politely correct her and she would say, ‘Sorry, I just forgot’, but the same thing happened time and time again. No one else at work seemed to have this problem, so when it kept happening, over and over again, I asked my supervisor if he could have a word with the lady, which he did. This made no difference whatsoever, she continued to get it wrong and it began to look as though her ‘forgetfulness’ was deliberate. My supervisor passed the issue over to our manager in Oban, who told the woman that she had to comply with the legal requirement to acknowledge me as a female, and if she didn’t she would face a disciplinary hearing.

When her ‘confusion’ about my gender still continued, the woman was given a final warning, at which point she said that it wasn’t intentional, she just kept forgetting. She was informed that this was no excuse and she had to make it part of her job to get it right, or face a full disciplinary hearing. At last, this seemed to do the trick, although I was now given the cold shoulder by her. That didn’t bother me. I have had to put up with much worse than that over the years and it wasn’t long before she left the company anyway. I have had no further problems at work since that time. I am accepted by everyone at work and treated wholeheartedly as the woman that I am.

I was doing very well as Julie, and life was just getting better all the time. Not only had I become supremely confident and optimistic beyond belief, but I was starting to feel a great sense of satisfaction and contentment. I knew that the following year, if I passed all the tests and met the criteria demanded by the NHS, my big day would come and I could have the surgery that would make me female, anatomically and permanently, but for now my sense of achievement was coming from the fact that I seemed to be accepted for who I now was by most people, some of whom were saying that they actually liked me better as a woman than as a man.

At this time there was a steady influx of newcomers to the island, and these people had only ever known me as Julie. Two of these newcomers, a couple called Ian and Terri, would become the best and most sincere friends I have ever had, and when I needed someone by my side they went above and beyond what anyone could expect of even the best of friends. I first met Ian in late 2004. He had retired from a career in business a couple of years earlier and had decided to look for a house in Scotland, which brought him to Coll, where he had come to view a farmhouse that was for sale. He was staying in the Coll Hotel and that’s where Marcia and I met him on one of our nights out. We got talking and had a drink together and I offered to help him in any way I could do, telling him that I had a small maintenance business. That first night we met, I just had an intuition that we were going end up being close friends. The next day he went off on the ferry back to the mainland, and a few weeks later we heard that he had bought the farmhouse. The next time I saw him was on the ferry in early February when he brought the first vanload of furniture over for his new house. Marcia and I had been to the mainland on a shopping trip and were returning home. Ian and I recognized each other immediately, but there was a woman with him I didn’t know. Marcia and I speculated wildly as to who she was because she wasn’t the same woman who had been with him on his previous visit to the island. I didn’t get a chance to speak to Ian and his friend since we were nearly home and we were all heading to our cars, ready to disembark from the ferry.

Later that day I went over to Ian’s house to offer to help in any way I could, and Ian introduced the mystery woman as his partner, Terri. She seemed to have a twinkle in her eye, and just as when I first met Ian, I knew for certain that we were going to be good friends from that moment.

At first our relationship was purely business. Ian had asked me to help with renovating the house and I agreed to work with them for as long as they wanted, thinking it would be two or three months at best. It actually took two years – although I did have to break off occasionally to attend to some of my regular clients, and of course I also had my full-time job at the ferry terminal.

Ian, Terri and I were spending so much time together that we were becoming ever closer friends. They had totally accepted me as a woman – after all, they had only ever known me as Julie (although, like nearly everybody else, they were soon calling me Jules, which was absolutely fine).

I consider my friends on the basis of their loyalty and commitment to me, and in return they can expect the same from me – unconditional loyalty and uncompromising commitment. The few people over the years who have been unfailingly sincere, honest, truthful and loyal are the ones that I cherish and they know that they can rely on me; Ian and Terri definitely fall into that category. They were part of a small band of six, which also included my ex, Anne, who is the only person on this earth who ever truly understood me and what I was really all about. As I’ve said before, she seemed to know me better than I knew myself.

Unfortunately the other three in that small group of best friends are no longer around. Sheila Bidwell, my friend from my days in Callander, was the person who first recognized that I was different and confronted me about it over coffee one day. However she then became an enthusiastic supporter and encouraged me to do what I thought was right for me and not to worry about what others might think. She stood by me until she died in 2006. Then there was Sue Clarke in Edinburgh, whose surname I took my own from. She gave me the confidence to get out and about and meet people as Julie; from the day we first met, she was prepared to accept me for what I was – or what I aspired to be, when I was still struggling with that. She encouraged me to climb out of the hiding place I was in at the time and told me to walk tall, be seen and believe in myself. From her I learned that I could do what ever I wanted to do, and every time I get dressed up to go out, I look in the mirror and think, ‘Yes, Sue was absolutely right!’ Sadly, she died in the late 1990s, but I know she’s still watching over me.

Probably the most visible of the true friends I have lost, because she was seen most openly with me and was prepared to take any flak for it, was Marcia. She had been ill for a while, but I was still left with a huge sense of loss and emptiness when she passed away in 2006. I think of Marcia as the bravest of all my friends because she was prepared to be seen with me in the very difficult days, right after I openly became Julie Clarke. She was steadfast in her belief in me and together we presented a united front. The really sad thing is that she isn’t around to see Julie as she is today. She would have been so proud of me; she was the one person who mentored me in the art of womanhood. We had endless conversations about how I looked and she was instrumental in teaching me about deportment and how to ‘be’ in general, especially in the company of men. Marcia played a very large part in my transition and was there for me at a time when I needed all the help and support I could get.

To have lost three such dear and trusted friends has been devastating, but I’m convinced all three are watching over me. They would all, I’m sure, have been delighted with the woman I have become today.

The majority of residents on Coll are now ‘incomers’ – and I include myself in that category. I only moved here permanently in 1995, although many of the other incomers have been here much longer. Long gone are the days when the island was populated mainly by Collachs. Sadly, the indigenous population is quite literally dying off – even though, having said that, there are now thirty or so children born to islanders and these children are the new generation of Collachs. We incomers, no matter how long we have lived on the island, will always take second place to them, we can never be true Collachs. What we are, though, is an eclectic bunch from an astonishing range of backgrounds and careers. There are managing directors of national companies to former members of the armed forces; doctors, lawyers and accountants, ex members of the police and fire services, former national sports personalities – and even a nuclear physicist, as well as many others. All of us have opted out of a more predictable way of life on the mainland to take our chances on this small island on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. It’s that diversity of people with their multitude of skills, most of whom have been highly successful in their former careers, that has made the island dynamic, forward-looking, vibrant and prosperous. Many have used their entrepreneurial and business experience to breathe new life into the place.

More recently though, a small minority of those incomers have found that maybe the grass isn’t as green on this side of the fence as they might have hoped, and are actively striving to bring in more amenities and services (the ‘mainlandization’ of Coll), thus destroying the very thing which attracted them to this beautiful and unique island. But don’t get me started on that one …

It was by now high summer and the island was bursting at the seams with tourists and all the Coll exiles who come home for their summer breaks. The latter are affectionately known as the summer swallows. They live on the mainland for most of the year and return to their family homes for the summer. Everything happens in summer – the Coll Show, the annual sea-fishing competition, the Coll open golf championships and numerous beach parties, barbecues and dances in the village hall. If the weather is good, it really does feel like you’re in paradise.

This summer I was not focused on the fun I could have on the island. I had just received an appointment to meet an independent clinical psychologist in Edinburgh who would decide, once and for all, if I was ready to go forward and make the momentous changes to my body that would be the result of a gender reassignment operation.

My appointment was set for the 10th of August 2005. Despite everything I had been through at the Sandyford – so many consultations and assessments covering a multitude of medical and psychological tests – this appointment was in some ways the most important of my entire life. This man had the power to make or break me. But I was confident that he would agree with all the other experts I had already met, who agreed that I really was a woman trapped in a man’s body.

The appointment was at eleven thirty in the morning, and I was there half an hour early. I am never late for anything – indeed, I am meticulous and almost obsessive about punctuality and the need to be where I should be, at the time I should be, to do what is required of me. I was expecting the meeting to be very formal and serious so I was taken completely by surprise when the receptionist called me through to the consultant’s room and I was greeted by a cheery-looking little man sitting at the other side of the desk.

He said, ‘Hello, Julie. How are you today?’

I replied nervously, ‘Very well, thank you. How are you?’ Greeting him as I would do anyone immediately took away the tension and got us off on a great footing.

He said right away, ‘I see you’re from the Isle of Coll – I’ve been to most of the Scottish Islands but never Coll’, and I joked, ‘Well, that’s terrible!’

He went on to say that he loved travelling on CalMac ferries, and I told him that I worked for CalMac. He began to ask me all about my work and what it was like to be a woman, helping dock those huge ships, as well as what it was like to live in such a beautiful part of the world. This is how the conversation went for half an hour or so, at which point I began to realize that he hadn’t asked me any serious questions yet, which worried me. After a little more conversation about nothing in particular, he said, ‘Well, Julie, I’m happy to sanction your gender reassignment.’

I was confused, to say the least. ‘But you haven’t asked me any relevant questions yet!’

His response was, ‘I don’t have to. For the past forty minutes I have been talking to a woman who clearly loves life and is content with the path she has chosen, or which has been allocated to her by her circumstances. There is no doubt in my mind that you will live successfully as a woman for the rest of your life.’ He went on the say he would send his report to the Sandyford Clinic, recommending my full gender reassignment.

After everything I had been through over a period of more than forty years, coming close to the point of total meltdown and descending into oblivion many times, the direction the rest of my life would take was decided in a meeting with a consultant who didn’t even ask one question about my troubled and traumatic life! I realize now that he was looking at the person in front of him and not at who, or what, I had been in the past.