Friday - The Mothers : (The Mother Aspect of the Goddess).

My parenting was always full of seeming contradictions. I was a female father, whom my children knew only as a woman, although I had created the seed that fathered them. This made life very difficult but I know that if I had transitioned earlier or not met Jackie, I may never have had children - nor had the delight of watching two wonderful girls grow and of sharing much with them. It was them that made me a parent. They helped forge me - sometimes with pleasure, sometimes with real pain. They taught me about the reality of being part of life's cycle. This book is dedicated to them.

As they grew up I saw how differently they treated males - and knew that they had missed the fun and benefit of having a parent who was a father in their lives. I know what I would have liked to have in my life. A Dad I could have related to as a girl. A Dad that as a girl I could have had fun with. A Dad I could have experimented with as the safe male in my life. If I wanted this, then how much did my daughters want the same?

I could only offer them something different, someone different - a parent born between the tides, a person nonetheless that loved them deeply. We were for them two parents that loved each other and them.

Jackie and I were often very happy to be together, despite all the pain that we had experienced. She was often inspiring. I think we both gave each other much.. This chapter is the story of how we tried to keep our promise to each other and to our children to share with them all that we could...and to leave them free to grow.

When we returned from Australia to England in 1976, we were tired but we still shared the old ideals that had brought us together. We had only got this far because we deeply loved each other and saw what we shared as very precious. We were determined to preserve our family, to continue to live together. We also remained physically close despite all the changes in me. We remained lovers, both of us finding other ways to give each other pleasure. I have since slept with other women as well as having normal heterosexual relationships with men and know myself as bisexual - but I think Jackie was only bisexual in the context of our relationship.

For what Jackie was giving me, for enabling me to stay parenting with our children with her, I both loved her and put her on a pedestal as my father did my mother, for, beyond thinking of Jackie a wonderfully gifted and generous person, I was enormously grateful for her agreement that we could bring up the children together. I idealised her and could not see her realistically. It took years before I learnt of how she had both loved and hated me. Loved me for what I gave, hated me for trapping her in a life that she had not planned.

There were other aspects to our relationship that I did not see as clearly as I did later. I did not realise that our family relationship also helped to trap me in role behaviour which were not completely natural for me but formed both by Jackie's expectations and by our cultural expectations for fathers. I thus did the things for the family that was expected culturally of a father.

The basic human attributes of masculine and feminine are naturally and usually connected to the reproductive functions of the genders. Males are predestined to usually want to be fathers, females to be mothers. We enjoy being gendered. These differences are grounded across cultures and history because they are based on the usual association of a certain set of genitals with real brain and/or spirit differences. Our male-female bi-polar society is thus natural and not bound to the varying cultural expressions of gender.

But this linkage of genitals to gender is not as basic as the link between our brain or spirit with gender. Perhaps a gift that transsexuals have to give society is that of breaking the compulsory linkage between the configuration of the reproductive organs and our parental roles. Other factors in reproductive science are leading the same way. Today fathers need not physically father. Mothers need not physically bear their children. Today parenting roles and titles should be re-rooted, linked to the heart of the individual and be born out of a relationship with children. Transsexuals have a symbolic value. They can stand for the power of individuals to define their lives, to value spirit over genitals - although like others, they too enjoy being gendered - being gendered in the gender of their spirits.

Gender also does not determine sexual partners. This is a wholly other matter. The flexibility that really exists in this was experienced by Jackie and I. We continued after my transition to enjoy going to bed together. - at least on many occasions. Love is a gloriously splendoured thing. We wanted to make each other happy and share bringing up our children and these two wishes kept us together for many years.

When I started to write this chapter, I was not sure how to proceed - so asking for inspiration I looked up out of the window and saw a heron flying past with its heavy majestic wings assuaging the air on its way to feed its children. This gave me the thought that the beauty of nature's constant cycle of children, was sufficient reason for writing a chapter entirely centred on the beauty that grows rich and deep from the mothers' bloody birth to the spilling of one's children out into the world. This process took up a major part of my own life and enriched me. So here is my story of bringing up our children, as a woman who is Dad. This is not their story for that is for their own telling.

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I had taken our story in the last chapter to our visit to Francis's groves above Assisi. From here we to the great Renaissance city of Sienna, where once lived St. Catherine of Sienna, the namesake of our children. We named the children after her because she was a strong willed mystically inclined woman not past lecturing the Pope when she felt he had need of it. We went to visit the house she had lived in. Her "A Treatise of Divine love" is about the mystic wedding, when God " shall be one with me and I with him". This she tried to achieve thorough love and denying her own will while taking on God's will. We had then little understanding about her weak side, how her anxiety and penances were driven by her anorexic need to conquer her body - nor how she gave to the church authorities the job of defining what was God's will for her and her resulting anorexia.

Karina and Katie had seen Italian "flag-dancing" in medieval style processions in Gubbio. So, in honour of "their city" and their saint, as small pre-school children, they danced in the great central square of Sienna with the splendid large flags we had bought them. Then sitting on steps in the square we ate a coiled-up "snake" cake to complete the celebration. The children seemed to love this place but my own feelings were more ambiguous. I knew that I was further outside the institutional church than Catherine ever went. I could not see where my path was taking me..

Our family pilgrimage then collapsed when the gear box of the minibus we had purchased went bust.. We could find no one to fix it in the time we had. We spoke no Italian - and the promised car papers had not come. Travelling by car with our two tiny kids and mountains of luggage became impossible. I bought all of us a train ticket to England and we abandoned the minibus in the streets of Turin with the keys in its lock.

Kevin, a younger debonair brother of mine, met us as we arrived by ferry in Folkestone, the town where he and I grew up. Kevin told me he had always wanted a "big sister"! It was a very happy reunion. I had not realised he was so good looking. Katie and Karina were so happy to arrive in what they had been told was their ancestral country that they danced naked on the sandy beach.

Another friend from years before, Keith Kimber, now an Anglican priest in Bristol, welcomed us as dear long lost friends. He found us a house opposite his in a street filled with lively children of West Indian parents. By good fortune, I obtained a few months later an international scholarship from a Geneva-based Church organisation that would support me for three years while I set up support groups for Aborigines and other indigenous minorities. I had the resources - all I needed now was the people. But everything seemed to be falling into place.

However Kevin was the only one of my own childhood family to welcome me back. My brother Tony responded to a letter by writing that this was too hard for him to adjust to - so he felt it best that we did not meet - it took us over a year to be reconciled (and are now the best of friends). My brother Bernard was so much younger than me that I had not got to know him as we grew up - so I felt him hard to approach. The life of my sister Maryanne was still very much centred around our parents home - and her decision I felt would be theirs. I then wrote to my parents to tell them the hard news that I was now Janine. My Mother's answer seemed to lack comprehension. What I was telling her took me so far from her own dreams for me that she closed her mind to it, sure her dream for me remained my dream. I wrote again and again. She did not seem able to see that I was not her dream. She could not accept me, her iconoclast of dreams.

After I had been in England a year, in the June of 1977, I went down to see my parents and Maryanne in their flat overlooking the sea near Brighton, taking them a great bunch of flowers. I thought that if they saw me, they would better understand how natural it was for me to live as a woman. But it was predictably impossible. I remember sitting on the sofa very ill at ease as my mother and my sister tried eagerly to convert me back to male ways. I was offered a man's jacket. No harsh words were spoken but it ended with my father putting me, wet eyed, out of the house and giving me back the flowers I had brought them. He said he wanted to protect my mother from getting upset at my stubbornness.

The rejection by my parents was partly expected. I was more surprised and hurt by the felt rejection of me by some of my family. It needed not be like that. I now know of many others who also had to walk between the genders but were supported by their parents. These rejections were for me a primal pain that went back to my childhood's fears. I still bear the scars. I am terrified by rejection yet was exposed to it by being open.

I saw parenting as having little to do with the initial creative act. That takes seconds for a male, nine months for the female - but for both parents it takes years to effect. It is not the child the parent creates - for the child will create itself. It is a nurturing world that they create, a safe place for the child to grow, to experiment, to make mistakes, to find herself or himself.

The mother and the father donate the initial materials of life bringing together the iron and flint. The spark that then comes flies free - and is not of the iron or flint but of itself. From that point on both the mother and the father are creating a nurturing world. The mother provides her womb while the father may work with the woman and with others perhaps - for this can be a social act - to create an external womb, a nest, to gather the child into once it tumbles from the internal womb. Neither parent owns the child. All they own is the nest they created.

But as for Jackie's fear that the news of my transition would kill her Dad, we found we had fled in vain. He responded to her letter to him marvellously, sending us a letter that was very sympathetic, saying that as the genders are so alike, it was surprising that there were not more people like me. They asked if there were anything they could do to help us as a family. Their attitude was so refreshing after that of my own family, that I wondered at why we had fled Australia to a much harder world, But I understood why Jackie had feared so much to tell him. Her relatives lived mostly in a very different world that she had rejected as her living place but which still drew her through blood ties and a sense of family obligation. I think she felt she needed to create a space between them and her so she would have more freedom to be herself and to live with me.

Even if we had not left when we did, we would still have eventually left Australia for a few years. We had always intended to come back to the UK. I wanted very much to see my own ancestral lands again, to meet up with my family and restore my relations with them.

One of the first things we did on our return was to go into Wales, into its wild ancient valleys - where in a tumbling mountain stream we dipped our youngest child, red-headed, transparent skinned Katie, with her strong Celtic looks, to unite her with the energy of her ancestral earth, to bless her and to thank God for her. This was her own welcome rite - quite different from the party we had given Karina with its dedications and blessings from street people. The difference between these rites was more to do with our changing lives and ideas as much as the difference between our children. Still, there was something instinctive about this. Katie's skin was too delicate for the Australian sun. She seemed to belong here in these hills - or at least, this is where her ancestors came from.

For our children the seasons of the British Isle were very new. They had grown up in an Australian version of a Mediterranean climate, amid trees that turn the edges of their leaves to the sun so as to minimalise their exposure, letting sunshine stream to the forests floor even in mid-Summer. Here the ground flowers of the forest such as the bluebell have to come into their glory before tree leaves block the sun from the ground. We also hired a Welsh cottage so our children could experience a real snowy winter when they frolicked, snow balled and made snow angels..

In September Karina started primary school in Bristol but she was very shy - quite different from Katie who was a confident social mixer and very popular at her nursery school. Jackie now took on the primary care role for them as my work to establish an Aboriginal support group network took me frequently away for 3 to 5 days a week. This was hard for us all.

I found funding for my work to raise support for Aborigines from a scholarship scheme set up by churches for people working on frontiers of social justice. This enabled me to organise support groups for Aboriginal Land Councils in Geneva, Frankfurt, Bonn, Copenhagen, London, Amsterdam and Heerlen. I also received help from War on Want and other aid groups as well as from the World Council of Churches. My aim was to organise the maximum international pressure on Australia so that it might be encouraged to grant some justice to its Aboriginal peoples.

We were happy when an Aboriginal Elder arrived from Melbourne, Mrs. Hyllus Maris. I took her to one of my ancestral land's sacred places - the Stone Circles of Avebury, which still are for me the spiritual centre of my homeland. She lay her hands against one of the megaliths, stood quietly contemplating, then turned to me, her face glowing, and said: "Why did no one tell me that you have places like this in your country?" She was amazed and delighted to discover that the British people were also an ancient people, with sacred places that were thousands of years old. She touched the stones with care and gentleness and loved the place.

She named our nascent Aboriginal support group, BARAC, the name of one of the famous elders of her people, a strong fighter for her people's rights. BARAC also stood for the Black Australia Research and Action Centre.

I have found a poem of hers. This is part of it.

"I am a child of the Dreamtime people,

Part of this land like the gnarled gum tree,

I am the river softly singing,

Chanting our Songs on the way to the sea,

My spirit is the dust devils,

Mirages that dance on the plains,

I'm the snow, the wind and the falling rain,

I'm part of the rocks and the red desert earth,

Red as the blood that flows in my veins... " The way of the Earth p 108

Despite the church support I was gratefully receiving, I felt very alienated from organised Christian practices. When I went back into churches, I found them less my place than were the Avebury Circles with their pillars open to the sky. So I experimented, looked around, tried the more charismatic of Christian religions for I wanted very much a community to pray with, but could not find one I was at all at home with.. So I simply go back to nature, to wild places, to where since childhood I have always found the creating spirits. And now I start to say Goddess as well as God as I felt a need to equally recognise the femininity of the birthing work of the Deity.

It was not so easy to raise support for Australian Aborigines. The first meeting arranged for me showed what I was up against. I was invited to speak on the plight of Australian Aborigines at a Welsh university. Three people turned up. A meeting organised on the evils of apartheid at the same college attracted over a hundred. Aborigines were clearly a quaint subject, esoteric, of academic interest only.

I went to the office of a leading "third world education" magazine, the Internationalist. I showed them documentation on how Australian Aborigines had an average life span below 50 while Australians as a whole lived to 80. I showed how British companies were dispossessing the tribes that still had land for mineral wealth. I said colonised minorities world-wide shared the same fate. They wanted like other colonised peoples to regain control over their own lives. But, unlike the Blacks of South Africa, they could not find salvation through democracy - for the invaders now outnumbered them.

But I met with a disinterested reception. I was asked how many Aborigines were there in Australia. I said around quarter of a million. The man I saw practically yawned and said they had to deal with problems on a world-wide basis that affected millions. They could not deal with such a local problem. Since then the Internationalist has had a chance of heart and has covered Aboriginal affairs but that is how it was in 1976.

However I did gain the support of War on Want. They agreed to sponsor a book that would educate people on the issues. I also found a partner, Roger Moody, an editor of Peace News that covered tribal minority issues in other parts of the world. Roger lived with his elder brother, Peter, who had Down's Syndrome. When their mother died many years ago, Roger came back from working on aid projects in Bangla Desh to take over caring for his brother so he would not be put away in an institution

Roger and Peter's home in North London became my London base. It was what was called a "licensed" squat, a house scheduled for eventual demolition that was temporarily lent to a housing association. It was a crazy creative house of brilliant piano music as Roger could work miracles from broken instruments, and a riot of children because of his youth work. The basement kitchen was always in confusion. A damp air of dissolution hung on the condemned walls. Documents racked available wall space in other rooms, clustering like colonies of bats in every available place. Several creative and fascinating people shared the house - and overall hung the brilliant concerned intellect of Roger, steadfast in working for many an endangered race and careless of a need for more than a sustenance for himself.

I was communing up and down from London and Bristol, spending 3 or 4 days a week in London working with Roger. I took advantage of these journeys to spend time with the ancient sacred places that lay between the cities, in particular, around Avebury. I stopped there particularly to tread the ancient avenue of standing stones and to seek for myself a better understanding of our heritage.

Then unexpectedly in August 1977, Jackie asked if she and the children could leave our Bristol house with its several rooms and come up to live in just the two rooms available in Roger and Peter's home. The Bristol house had only been rented to us for a year - but we had been offered alternative accommodation in the gigantic top floor flat of the Anglican Vicarage. This would have been much more comfortable but Jackie was both uneasy about moving into the more settled routines of an Anglican parish and was not happy with me spending only three days a week with them. She feared the children were becoming more bourgeois, more consumer centred. Above all, she wanted us to be together.

I was apprehensive, concerned that the London house would be too difficult - but it was wonderful for us all to be together and I loved her the more for coming up to live in with me in this crazy poverty. It was as we could transcend anything. We seemed to be getting on well as two women and as lovers, sharing ideals and spirituality and children while washed by a sea of visitors. Our life became much fuller. We did much together. And extraordinarily, our two girls seem to love this slum house

Right behind our home was the children's school. My diary recorded that "Karina at last comes out of herself at school and does very well. Katie in town is less sure of herself " but is losing very quickly her consumerism. We had many wonderful visitors, many volunteers to do work on behalf of Aborigines. Roger was a social nonconformist, a journalist, with links to tribal peoples around the world.

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Roger and Peter wrote a delightful book together called "Half Left : The Challenge of growing up "not quite normal" which received a brilliant review in the Times Literary Supplement. Peter was not at all stereotyped for he had not been institutionalised. He modelled himself on his brother by organising his own careful research projects - not into issues of social justice but into horror movies. I remember several times being woken up by screams and rushing in to Peter's room, only to be met by a sheepish smile. He would have been reading aloud a horror tale to himself and inserting sound effects. He seemingly identified with people seen by us as "monsters". Peter became close to me but closer to my partner Jackie. Nearly a score of years later. Peter still would ask after Jackie whenever I met him. They both would come out to visit us after we returned to Australia.

In this ramshackle and chaotic house we had one large room and a smaller separate room for the children. The large room was our bedroom, sitting room and study. It was in this room that I wrote the book on the Aboriginal struggle for justice that War on Want were funding. It was to be called "From Massacres to Mining". We were planning to launch at the time of a tour of Europe by Aborigines. In German, Denmark and Holland we contacted already established groups that supported American Indian peoples and persuading them that the Aboriginal struggle in Australia merited the same degree of help. In Copenhagen, Professor Helge Kleiven, professor of "Eskimology", gave us great support as did his group, "The International Workgroup on Indigenous Affairs" which documented oppression and raised money for international gatherings of tribal people.

At one of these gatherings a young American Indian vented his frustration by denouncing the "white" people "like Professor Kleivan" who made a good living from writing on their plight. The Professor with some anger responded that his grandmother was a Sami, that his people had for millennia worked with the raindeer herds of the north. The Indian had made his mistake because the Sami are white skinned and blue eyed. But they and love the land of which they are part very much as do the Aborigines of Australia. They still held onto ancient European shamanic traditions. Professor Kleivan was the gentlest of men, with a great old fashioned courtesy. Ultimately I think all of us that love and are part of the land have an indigenous inheritance although many have forgotten our ancient heritage.

In Germany we gained help from the "Society for Endangered Peoples". They invited me to address their conference and I was overwhelmed by their immediate response and eagerness to help. They arranged to translate my book "From Massacres to Mining" into German. I can also remember with some amusement how a leading member of their organisation thought me most female - because, it seemed, I had sat at his feet patiently listening to him. Yes, I had found it strangely easy to slip into a "female" role of being supportive to men, to appear "female" by being non-assertive. I fear I found it tempting sometimes to give away responsibilities, to let men make decisions for me. I never had this option before. I experimented with it. I wanted the men to treat me as female, to like me as female. It was beguiling - but a rare and experimental indulgence. Normally I was not this patient, this accommodating, this weak.

In the Netherlands it was a very different bunch of people that gave us support. They were mostly old friends from before I married, the with whom Jackie and I had co-celebrated a wedding mass on our way to Australia. They were not dismayed by my change of gender roles. They translated some of the Mapoon books into Dutch. The Aborigines that subsequently visited told me they felt more at home with these Dutch students than anywhere else in Europe.

In London Survival International and the Anti-Slavery Society gave us support, but here, we founded our own organisation which later became known as CIMRA - Colonialism and Indigenous Minorities Research Action. We had a penchant for academically accurate but verbose names. All we did was in consultation with the North Queensland Land Council and with other Aboriginal land councils.

While all this was happening, the children forced me to my most creative efforts. I continued what was now a family tradition, telling "Kathy" stories at night. Kathy was a kid who ran the "Children's Emergency Service." She had been landed by a distant aunt with a wardrobe that could turn itself a Doctor Who style "tardis" When it heard on the ether a cry of help, it woke Kathy by banging its door. She then, often grumpily, dragged on her dressing grown, climbed into the wardrobe, and went to rescue whatever adult or gnome or other creature was in distress. Behind the mirror of her wardrobe lay a swamp in which lived Dino the Dinosaur, her friend and companion in these adventures. It stretched my imagination to the limit inventing on the spur of the moment a new adventure every night. I could not repeat an adventure. Karina and Katie would not permit it. I think they still remember the stories today.

Also, quietly, in the backwaters of my life, away from my political and work, I proceeded along the gender role reassignment path I had set for myself. (I do not say I changed gender - for I believe I always was female physically, at least in the shape of my brain.) By 1977, after 2 years of taking hormones, they had done their work in adapting my body - but still some surgery was needed - or so I decided at the time although a nagging doubt dogged me. At that time the only place in England that was willing to surgically reassign transsexuals was Charing Cross Hospital in London. The procedure there was that I should once a month see a certain elderly and eccentric psychologist, a Doctor John Randel, for half an hour. If after a year he felt that I was succeeding in living as a woman, he would recommend me surgery.

These sessions were always shallow and somewhat strange but fortunately I was not going to him for help in untangling myself. They were simply for him to vet me. The first such meeting in February 1977 was what my diary called: "a terrible grilling, deliberately provocative". I think the idea was that if I continued to see him despite this, I would be demonstrating that my "condition" was not superficial. However I felt his criteria were superficial. I felt that to prove myself "female" during my visits to him I would have always on "my most careful and ladylike behaviour" in a most old fashioned way.

In a sense, I was fulfilling the expected "patient's" dance for I continued to want access to the mysteriously alchemic hormone pills. If I were to be prescribed these, then I was expected after a year or two to proceed to surgery. The latter was never as big a deal for me as were hormones. The female hormone balance in my body, the changes that this had enabled in my body, my everyday life as a woman, were vastly more important to me than surgery. My body lived, breathed, felt, as a female. My full figure had made my movements change to accommodate. My skin was delightfully erotic all over. The only external exception was hidden by my clothing. Phallically my body was now shaped child-like, relaxed, pre puberty. A dark line marked where labia sought to develop but could not do so. The rest of my body was my erogenous zone. The part below my waist I mostly made a no-go territory in my love-making as it generated confusion in my partners and sadness in me.

Surgery would make my life far safer. I lived with the fear that if I were arrested, I could be thrown into a male prison and raped. For me it was a real risk given the political nature of my work. I thought those who framed these rules gave to surgery much too much weight. They were unaware that the hormone balance was the key element together with the birth gendered brain. Surgery should not be required before giving legal recognistion to a change of gender roles.

Of course surgery would presumably allow me to have intercourse as a woman. This was still an unknown sexual territory for me that was somewhat fearful and desired. But while I was living with Jackie it was scarcely a problem. It was a potential problem for I knew I was bisexual. But when I first sought surgery I did not have a regular partner who wanted me to be capable of intercourse.

A hospital imposed requisite for surgery was that Jackie and I were divorced. It seemed that doctors feared being sued by deprived spouses! We found that if we declared we had separate bedrooms for a long period of time, this was sufficient in English law to get a divorce on the basis of separation. So we filed for divorce and for joint custody of the children. Jackie and I were one on this. We had simply told the state when we married. We now simply told the state we were separating. It was not at all traumatic.

There was however one aspect of the procedure that we scared us. We could not prevent our divorce being listed on the daily chart of the business of a court. As my name was now legally Janine, we would be listed as a divorce between two women and this we knew could invite the intrusion of nosy tabloids. In the event, in 1978 the case was listed under our initials and no unwelcome publicity generated. English law is somewhat insane on this. The authorities had issued me a passport as a woman, would mostly treat me as the woman I said I was and refer to me by a female name, but they will still not allow me to marry as a woman, declaring that I must legally remain the sex the doctors announced I was at birth. This is particularly odd when one thinks of how some children are surgically assigned to a gender prior to the issuing of their birth certificates. The only countries in Europe in 1999 that refused to allow birth certificates to be amended were the UK, Eire, Andorra and Albania.

While all this was happening we had a very much children centred Christmas seasons, taking full advantage of being in London. We went to three different Pantos one year. When we met up with Peter Pan at a stage door, "the kids were jumping up and down with excitement". The Royal in Stratford, a wonderful East End traditional multi tiered theatre, was another great delight as the characters raced from balcony to balcony in a confusion of confusions.

In the harsher more prosaic everyday world, We also edited in our single room, with permission from its original producers, a shortened version of an early film called "Ningla-a-Na" on the Aboriginal struggle so we could use it to support the Aboriginal speaking tour. We took from it the story of the embassy tent that had been erected opposite the Australian Parliament to bear witness to the nationhood of the Aboriginal people and to the indignities suffered by them.

We also did our best to put pressure on the major British mining company, RTZ, which controlled CRA, the biggest mining company in Australia. They effectively ran the Weipa mine where we had seen Aboriginal people devastated and herded into a small reserve so that their company could more easily profit from Aboriginal land. They were ripping out the aluminium rich red clay that supported a vast ancient forest that still was hunt gathered and contained many sacred sites. We raised funds to bring representatives of the communities affected to the UK for a speaking tour planned for mid 1978.

But first, in March that year, Jackie took the children back to Australia for a 3 week holiday. She wanted to assure her parents that we were all well. She told me that she was really optimistic that things will work out well with her parents. She would also help fix up contacts for our Aboriginal centred work. With hindsight I think it likely that she was also starting to find the pressure and crowding in our near slum home a bit too much for her.

I think it was while she was away that I had to go to see the surgeon Mr Davise at Charing Cross. I had passed successfully the psychological assessment and had been recommended to him for an operation. He was a dried up looking character with no hint of sympathy about him. He came in, sat himself down and without taking more than a glance at me, told me to explain how my transsexualism developed.

I was most surprised by this. I thought he was to see me purely on physical matters relating to the surgery. Why was he re-assessing my psychological suitability? I wondered if he distrusted the psychiatrist. He wanted to know "how early it started being manifest" and the story of my life. He was particularly interested in my present relations with the children. Having established that I had married and was divorced, he asked if I had children. When I said yes, he asked who had custody. I said it was joint. He then promptly ended the interview saying he would not operate on anyone that still looked after their children for it spoiled the children's sexual stereotyping.

I then learnt from the psychiatrist that there was hope that the surgeon's decision would be reversed if I agreed to come in for a psychiatric consultation that would take just for 10 minutes every two months for another year or more. He recommended me to be patient. But I knew that there was no way I was going to prove I was a worthy candidate for an operation by pretending to abandon my children. What woman would agree to such terms!

Anyhow, that put the stop on any surgical plans for a while at least. I did not have the money to look for private treatment. And there was no way that I was going to desert my children. No surgery with children - so no surgery. I thought I was getting on fine as a woman without this operation - I just had to make sure I avoided any occasion when intercourse might be wanted!

I wondered would I have wanted surgery in a different society that accepted me as fully female without it? What if I had been born into one of the societies that saw people such as me as having a sacred gift and a useful wisdom that came from walking between the gender roles? I think I would have survived fine without an operation as long as I could freely live as a woman and had access to the oestrogen that my body could not make. This would not have been a problem - these societies knew many oestrogen rich plants such as black cohosh with its slender stem and three pointed leafs. These hormones were especially important to me in the early days of transition. Today I find my body seems to balance itself. I can survive without additional oestrogen. I am prescribed merely what an average woman has as an HRT dose after menopause but I do not need even this much.

But at that time I felt the surgeon had made my decision for me. I rejected the psychiatrist's offer of extended "assessment". Rather than continue with this hospital team, I would rather proudly but privately live with my so very hermaphrodite a body. "Privately" because, with our society being as it is, I could not easily reveal to lovers this wondrous body of mine. One thing I was not into was having sex with men who thought me male. My gender identity as female was essential to me. What if a man had fallen for me who saw me as a woman despite knowing all about my body? Well, just at that time, this seemed an impossible option for me. I simply focused on our family and my relationship with Jackie, despite being aware that I was constantly in danger. I knew without an operation, I was exposed to assault by men who would be affronted by me "pretending" to be a woman, as some of them would see it.

Today, over twenty years later, since I am more in tune with my life, I would be happy to be the proud hermaphrodite - as long as I was not seen as gender neutral or as having both gender identities - as long as I was seen as a woman with a different body. I now understand why ancient cultures called their hermaprodite Goddess "she" and did not use a gender neutral pronoun. I now know from experience how it is that one can be female yet not fully female shaped. Without my experience of life, I might not have thought this possible.

But apart from personal concerns, our work for Aborigines was moving forward. In May 1978 our group CIMRA, with the full support of War on Want, Survival International and Greenpeace, protested at the RTZ AGM in London against the action of its Australian subsidiary CRA in "targeting " the remaining Aboriginal Reserves. CRA had commissioned an internal report listing as "targets" in order of priority all the most important of these Reserves. It had been leaked to us by the Aboriginal elder Birnum Birnum, then an Aboriginal employee of CRA. We used it to good effect.

The Chairman of RTZ, Sir Mark Turner responded to us by saying that he would be asking Lord Shackleton, the Deputy Chairman of RTZ, to investigate these allegations on his forthcoming trip to Australia and to report back to him. We had excellent press. The campaign was now truly launched, a campaign that has now lasted more than twenty years, serving the needs of nearly a hundred indigenous minorities around the world.

I also wanted to get a film made that would bring the issues to television screens around the world. When in Australia we had seen a powerful documentary on apartheid made by a producer called Chris Curling.. We felt it would be great if a similar documentary were made to support Australian Aborigines. So, when I arrived in London I went to see Chris. He worked for a powerful current affairs program called "World In Action" produced for ITV by Grenada Television. The film I planned was made and named "Strangers in their own land". It has now been seen by over 200 million people world wide. Unfortunately it is banned in Australia due to legal action by the mining company - more about this later.

Shortly after this we received a notice that the tatty terrace of narrow brick three story houses in which we lived was to be demolished in order to extend the playground of our children's school. The adults among us thought this a good idea. The houses were slums and every bit deserved their death sentence. But the children thought they were a magic playground of much more fun than the boring school playground.

It then took the council after condemning them a year to get around to starting to knock them down. We knew they had a duty to rehouse us so we stayed on. The council had made no move to do this when they began demolishing the furthest end of our terrace. For a long hot and dusty summer we had to wait while the constant manoeuvring of bulldozers took chunks of plaster off our walls and filled our home with dust. The rats and mice sought refuge with us. When we asked if we could move out temporarily and stay with my brother outside London, we were told: "No, if you move out, even to go on holiday, the Council will no longer feel obliged to rehouse you." We stayed put with the rats. It was not long until the neighbouring houses were completely demolished with the exception of parts of the houses immediately to each side of us. These were only partially torn down so that our house would not fall down. Our home now looked like a ruined castle blasted by an invading army.

My daughter Katie has told me that she remembers this wrecked home as one of the finest of her childhood. She particularly remembered the front yard as being a happy place. It was scarcely a yard wide. It was extended by the use of an abandoned tray top lorry parked in front. This became the stage used for plays and story telling by neighbouring kids of mostly African or West Indian ancestry who were our children's closest local friends. The roof of the old bomb shelter in the back yard became their dancing place. An elaborate treehouse appeared in a neighbouring tree.

Although Jackie had wanted to come to London, the hardships of living here exceeded her expectations. Our relationship was growing strained. She told me she wanted to sleep with a mutual friend because she needed a man. She assured me this was not a danger to our family staying together - unless I made it so. I had long thought Jackie heroic in agreeing to stay with me. I knew she had given up much. Because of this I fought against feeling upset at her request. I was in fact scared and insecure, but I loved her and wanted her free and happy. I walked her to her lover's flat through the rough streets of our neighbourhood to show her that I respected her freedom, leaving her when she was near his door.

Jackie soon afterwards told me that this relationship had not been such good chemistry for her as she had hoped. She had left him unsatisfied. He remained my friend although naturally sheepish about all this with me. Jackie now seemed to be happy with me although I have since learnt that she was feeling much conflict. This sometimes showed in disputes but I remember these as unusual and quickly resolved. I now wonder if my acceptance of her liaison trapped her into living with me at a time when she might well have wanted an excuse to leave me. She may also have felt she had trapped herself by agreeing that we would bring up the children together.

Life improved when we were rehoused as we requested with Roger and Peter by the council. Soon after this the time came for the Aboriginal speaking tour of Europe. We had raised the funds for three Aboriginal spokespersons to come from North Queensland Land Council. Jacob Wolmby came from Aurukun, Mrs Joyce Hall JP from Mapoon and Weipa, and Mick Miller, Chairman of the Land Council, from Cairns. They accomplished an incredibly packed agenda with some 80 meetings in five countries in five weeks. Joyce Hall on television moved people to tears when she spoke about her land. Mick Miller was precise and strong, Jacob Wolmby accomplished great things in the Netherlands when Shell agreed before television cameras not to mine their several hundred square mile mining lease on his people's tribal lands without the people's consent.

The press conference in the centre of London had about a hundred press present. The delegation then took the press to the nearby offices of RTZ where they presented a very surprised company spokesman with an invitation to meet with them plus a present of some dirt, as a symbol of the dirt taken from them in Australia. When Lord Shackleton had gone to Australia to investigate the treatment of Aborigines around the Comalco bauxite mine, he had ignored a public invitation to meet with the North Queensland Land Council. The Land Council now forced RTZ to agree to this meeting.

This took place several days later in a RTZ board room. Both sides were allowed to bring their own neutral witness. We brought the chairman of the Antislavery Society. Lord Shackleton brought the Private Chaplain to the Queen, the Dean of Windsor, and two representatives of Comalco flown from Australia for this meeting. Roger and I came in with the Aboriginal delegation.

Mick Miller informed the meeting that the Land Council had been asked by the Weipa Aborigines to request the company to open negotiations with them - for the company had never seriously discussed loyalties, compensation or land ownership issues with the traditional owners of the land but instead had talked to missionaries. Joyce Hall then spoke of the suffering that Comalco had brought her people.

But the two and a half hours of discussions were fruitless. Shackleton admitted the housing at Weipa was very poor but nothing else. We tried to face him with the dilemma of moral versus legal rights. He then claimed that moral issues were the concern of the civil authorities and that if Australian law permitted, it was totally proper for their subsidiary Comalco to take and mine a thousand square miles of what was until then the land traditionally owned by Aborigines and protected as a reserve.

The value of the meeting was primarily that it forced RTZ to take Aboriginal objections seriously. It felt somewhat amazing that from our tattered home we had succeeded in getting RTZ to meet with us so prominently and seriously - but we did not achieve much excepting some good publicity that at least educated some of the public - and served as a media focus for the beginning of a long campaign that Roger and others are still continuing some 21 years later. In 1999 Roger helped organise yet another protest at an RTZ AGM by investors who do not care for how RTZ treats Aborigines.

But with Shell in Holland we had much better fortune. We went to see them after our London meeting with RTZ which they must have learned about since it was so widely covered in the media. The Aboriginal delegation gained good media coverage in Holland by telling how the Aurukun people defeated the Dutch in 1606 (ref. earlier chapter) Shell then agreed to a televised board room meeting with the Aboriginal delegation. At this, to our surprise and delight, Shell gave the delegation a written promise not to mine the 536 square miles of Aboriginal ancestral lands at Aurukun. The Wik nation, the people of Aurukun, thus retained a wide swath of ancestral lands covered in virgin forest that they still hunt/gathered and which contained many sacred places. This was a wonderful victory.

On a very personal level I was given a very important and delightful lesson. Joyce Hall, the Aboriginal delegate and elder from Mapoon, a guardians of the female mysteries, had something to teach me about my own sexuality. One day when we were on tour in Germany, she encouraged me to sleep with a younger German man who was showing interest in me, making sure we had some privacy. He was younger than me, awkward, shy - and I was so focused on the tour that I had not realised quite how much he was attracted by me.

To tell the truth, I was still very unsure of myself. I had been so focused on keeping our family together, that I had never thought much about my sexual needs. I was also scared that if I were not faithful to Jackie, whom I loved very much, our family would break up. I thought this even when Jackie had her own lover. I was also very nervous about making love. I had changed physically nearly everywhere in my body. My body was now sexually alert everywhere, softer, craving gentling. but I had not yet had any operation. I had consequently avoided sexual encounters as I did not know how to cope with my odd hermaphrodite body.

The night with this shy young German turned out to be marvellous. We were both unsure and careful with each other. I told him about my own gender background and it made no difference. That night proved to me that there were marvellous free ways to make love that did not involve intercourse. He pleasured me, thrilled me, all that night. My body woke up, thrilled, delighted. But sadly, the affair did not last and it was my own fault. He wrote to me after I returned to England but my life with Jackie and the children did not to allow me room for a lover although I supported Jackie in her adventures. I did not answer his letter. I did not know how.

I just was not sure enough of myself and things were too tough at home for me to cope with any new sexual relationship. It was hard to keep Jackie together . She was extremely depressed. But when I told her about my brief affair, her reaction was marvellous - putting into shadow all my hesitations and fears on her "affair'. She seemed freer on this than me. She said she was just happy for me and did not feel at all threatened (at least as far as she showed) Jackie's brave words may also have come because she wanted me to be freer of our family - so that she too could feel able to look forward to a freer life.

The Elder, Joyce Hall, was also expert at other kinds of guidance. After one meeting in London she told us she would be able to guide the driver back to the house where she was staying. She did so by pointing out trees. "Go up to that tree over there, the tall scraggly one, turn right, then down to that fat little tree, see the one, down there, turn left there..." and so on until she brought us unerringly back to her temporary home. Thus she navigated around London as she would at home.

After the Aboriginal tour was over we thought we could relax. But it was not long before something terrible happened. Our family home was raided by police at dawn on the 21st November 1978 and Roger arrested - because he had written an article in "Peace News" in which he had tackled a sacred cow of the moral brigade.. He had pointed out that "paedophilia" simply meant in its Grecian origins "love of children", that love was not wrong - what was wrong was exploiting children. This enraged some who were pursuing paedophiles. They misunderstood his distinction between love and exploitation. Every effort was made by the police to find evidence that Roger had abused children. This they did through traumatic interviews with every child he might have met. We were sure he was innocent. Indeed we could think of few people who would be less likely to abuse a child.

The centre of Jackie's concern was however not what might happen to Roger and to the brother Peter he cared for. She was afraid that if my parents learnt of this legal action, they might use it to have our children made wards of court. My mother had campaigned so hard for me to remain a Catholic priest, including doing such extraordinary things as sending Mother Teresa of Calcutta to me, that I thought it possible that she could take such legal action if she convinced herself it was for our betterment. But despite Jackie's testimony to me that she was sure my Mother was a danger, I had no proof that she would do any such thing.

Still I agreed to see a lawyer to discuss what my parents could do if they had a mind to. He told us that if my parents were to allege that our children were in moral danger, the children would be automatically and immediately made wards of the court. He advised us that my parents would not need to have any evidence to achieve this. It did not matter that our children were happy with us, that they were happy at school and progressing well. Just the complaint from a grand-parent sufficed. And with our unusual family structure and the allegations against Roger they had enough.

Our lawyer further advised that, if my parents did undertake such an action, our children could remain wards of state for years - even if my parents did nothing more than this. Indeed with good reports from the children's school and no critical reports from social workers it would be hard for them to do more. But this would mean we would have to take legal action ourselves to clear our family's name and to have the court orders lifted. This scared us. Such a legal case could expose us to tabloid newspaper exploitation and, above all else, it would mean that we would not be able to go back to Australia with the children while they were wards of court. The very thought of this possibility left Jackie particularly paranoid. She was increasingly seeing Australia as where she wanted to be, as a much more safe territory, Yet we both believed we could not desert Roger by fleeing back to Australia. That would be an impossible thing to do. We decided to stay until after his trial.

I never saw any evidence that my parents had planned any such action. My mother has since denied she ever thought to do such a thing. But Jackie's fears were real. The lawyer had confirmed that my parents had the ability to cause us much trouble. She was very scared. Without me realising it, she was growing away from me, blaming me in a way for the difficulties of our life together. She told me later that it was at this time that she started to grew cold to me.

Her depression grew so deep that I agreed that she would take the children back immediately after Roger's trial. She would not need to even pack. I told her I would do this immediately after she had gone. My work commitments meant that I would have to stay for six weeks after Roger's trial. I would then put our luggage on a ship and follow her by air to Australia. I needed also to return soon if I wished to keep permanent residency rights in Australia. The law was that I would forfeit these rights if I did not return within three years and two and a half years by then had passed.

Then there was another shock. We had come to rely on my brother Kevin and his wife Heather. They were the only relatives of mine that had made us welcome. Heather particularly had become a friend and confidante for Jackie. But on a visit to them in Kent they told us with set sad faces, drawn and miserable, that they had been forced to make a choice between us and my parents. They had been told that if they carried on seeing us, their children would lose them as grandparents. They had decided that they could not do this to their children - so sadly wanted us to no longer come and visit them. It was a terrible shock. I cried bitterly all night. Jackie was calmer - but she later told me that this was one of the last straws. She had depended on Heather's support as I did on Kev's. It left deep scars, but did not last. Over the next few months, Kevin and Heather came to retreat from this. They too were very unhappy at their decision. In fact we did meet up again about 6 weeks later. But it did confirm us in our fears that my parents would try anything to gain power over us.

But for me Australia did not look like a paradise, despite our fears in England. Around this time Jane and Paula , the children of Jackie's brother Jeff, visited England. They were two girls that I used to get on well with in Australia. Jackie went to meet them but I could not do so. Jeff had requested that they did not meet me. - because of my gender change. This messed up their visit for all of us. I still hoped things would work out in Australia. After all Jill's Dad had offered any support he could give to help Jackie and I as a family.

Soon a major element in this web of fear unravelled. When the prosecutors presented their evidence against Roger at the Old Bailey, the judge told them that they had no real evidence and should never have brought the case. He dismissed all charges against Roger before the defence case was even presented. It was a wonderful party afterwards, an enormous breath of relief. We had gone through hell for nothing.

Nevertheless, Jackie still wanted to leave. She was exhausted and still feared my parents. She booked on the first flight available, packed suitcases and I took her and the children to Heathrow Airport. It was tears all around and mutual assurances. "It won't be long. We will see you soon". I watched Jackie walking off down the corridor with the two small girls, 8 and 7, holding her hands. I can still see them now - their backs getting smaller and smaller until I could see them no longer. They flew off and I went back home. The house felt incredibly empty without them. I started packing and looked forward to having a more relaxed time in Australia with them.

Then next day, before their plane had arrived in Australia, a phone call came from my Mother. She begged me. "Please come down, Dad has a stroke and is dying." It was a total shock for he had not been ill and was only in his early sixties. My mothers request forced me into confusion. She also had asked: "Please come down as a man for your father's sake" This was something I could no longer do physically with any conviction - let along psychologically. I hesitated. I feared I was being manipulated. If I went down as a woman, and Dad died, I could be blamed for this. If I went down dressed as a man, and Dad recovered, I would be a nervous wreck. I feared that it was not my presence that was wanted but my compliance. Nonetheless I desperately wanted to be there.

But within a short time, Mother phoned again to say Dad had recovered consciousness. He seemed much better so the urgency seemed less. I had the chance to talk over what I should do with my brother Kevin. We agreed on a course of action. I phoned Mother and said that I feared my presence would make things worse, that it might cause problems for Dad, raising old issues that he would find it hard to deal with while so ill.

But then Dad had a relapse and slipped into a partial coma. Mother did not expect Dad to recover. Now she pleaded for me to come down. She wanted all the children there. I wanted to be there. Mother phoned again - and I agreed to go - and said I would wear slacks and a sweater as a compromise.

It was extremely ironic. For the first time it did not matter that I was a woman. It was at last more important that I was one of the family. I raced down. He was in a Southampton hospital in a single room. I soon learnt that there was little hope for his recovery. Mother told him I was there. He just managed to open his eyes to look at me once or twice. He was beyond speech or expression. A squeeze of hands was all that was possible but I was so enormously grateful for this.

The next morning I agreed to spend with him. We had no idea how long he would survive so would spend shifts with him. I was happy to have this time alone with him for it gave me a sad chance to tell him all the things I had longed to tell him for so long. I told him how much I loved him, how I had missed him,. I told him that nothing that had happened made me less his child, I sung to him even. I did not know for sure if he heard me but I hoped and believed he did - even if at a nearly unconscious level.

Then in the afternoon, after mother and my sister Maryanne had taken over the watch, his colour suddenly changed and a few breaths later he died. I went back to the hospital but did not go back in to see him again. I had never got to know him properly. I still think of him with affection, see his sandy hair, poise and laughing eyes as I knew him as a child. I am very sorry I never knew him as a daughter should. I mourned him deeply

The parish priest who knew my whole story from my mother was beautiful. He referred to me as her daughter when speaking to my mother. I did her shopping and took her and Maryanne out to dinner the night Dad died Suddenly it seemed she seemed to start to see me as the same child she always had, not a monster, not the figment of her imagination. It was strange - a meeting with my Dad of sorts - and then a much longed for reconciliation with my Mother. She discovered, I think to her surprise, that I was not the Danny Larue that she feared and that I was socially acceptable as a woman. Although I continued to wear sweaters and slacks, she found if she referred to me as a male socially, it simply confused everyone. Those who did not know me thought my mother must be talking of someone else or that they had misheard her. Those who did know me were as embarrassed as I was.

The only difficulty was at Dad's funeral. Many relatives turned up that had only now learnt of my transition. They were very uncomfortable, did not understand, their eyes mostly seemed cold and condemning to me.

Otherwise mother and I had an amazingly relaxed time. All the terrors of many years seemed to melt away. She said she too felt freer after dad's death. I wondered if I had misunderstood her earlier. She still made mistakes with pronouns when talking about me but would apologise if she embarrassed me in public. It was terrible that it had to be the death of my Dad that brought me together with my Mother.

It made me wonder if I had really ever understood my parents. When Dad wrote, many years before, saying Mother was right in trying to stop him smoking, I had seen him as dominated by Mother. But, if that had been so, why now was Mother freed by Dad dying?

` I then immediately turned my attention to packing up and moving back to Australia. I was very eager to see my daughters again. Jackie would not have yet received my letter telling them of what had happened for my Dad died as they were arriving in Australia . Ironically as she fled, my Dad's death had removed the danger from which she fled. It was similar to what drove us to England three years earlier. We then fled because Jill feared hurting her own Dad - and then found out that our fears were ill based. Jackie's fears were real for she was deeply torn by them. But if she had waited one more day, she would not have fled. She would not have felt able to leave while I was dealing with my Dad's illness and death - and then we would have been able to leave together. I would still have gone to Australia not just because Jackie wished to return there but because my 3 year grant for work on Aboriginal rights had come to its end and I needed to return to Australia to retain my rights of residence.

But then something else happened that was awful and devastating. Something unimaginable. A letter came from Jackie, written before she knew of what had happened with my father, saying she thought I should not follow her and the children to Australia. She said it gently. She said she did not want to drag me to Australia, that my talents for international work would be wasted in Australia.

But her gentleness did not disguise for a moment the bite of what she said. She had decided to break the relationship between us. I suddenly realised that my view of the back of our children walking away down the airport corridor might be the last that I saw of them for many years. Effectively, without my consent, without even discussing the possibility, Jackie, the woman that I loved, my equal legal partner in caring for the children, had practically abducted them to Australia.

A great cry of anguish went up from me. I was nearly out of my mind. I had presumed that we would be soon united. I found the idea that I might well have seen Karina and Katie and Jackie for the last time unimaginably horrific. I wondered how pre-planned this had been. . I howled in disbelieve. I wept and cried. I can remember driving out of London, driving through the woods and trees that I loved, crying. Great for my figure. I lost a stone and a half in seven weeks. It took me weeks to get over the initial shock. I cried and cried (hiding all this from Mum - I did not want her involvement given how much Jackie feared her).

I wrote Jackie a desperate letter. Not reproving her but telling her that my international work was of tiny importance to me compared with caring for our children... something that I knew she well knew.

I told her too that I loved her - but that if she needed an independent life I would respect this. She and I could live apart - but I begged, please don't put up a barrier that would keep me from our children. I reminded her that I couldn't stay in England because I would lose my residency rights in Australia. I told her too about my father. Letters to and from Australia are cruel. I had to wait two weeks for the response.

When her response came, she was begging for forgiveness - and telling me to come. She said she had not realised quite how devastating her plan would be for me. Yes, I was welcome to come back to Australia. Of course I could see the children and be with them. They needed me.

I very happily took her letter at its face value. I would go back to Australia. But I knew in my stomach that my relationship with Jackie would never be the same. The element of trust was undermined. I knew that she had not made this decision lightly. She must have been hiding much from me. Still I knew there was truth in what she said. I knew that she did feel guilty about taking me from my work as she had some three years earlier. She did not want to damage my work again.

But I also knew, felt again in my gut, that if it had been that simple, she would have told me to my face. I knew but did not want to know, that she had not told me of her plan for two further still unspoken reasons. One was that her plans were illegal. I had rights as a parent - and the children had legal rights to have me as a caring parent. But parenting for me was something quite apart from human laws. I would not use the law - and Jackie knew this. The other reason, and a more realistic reason, was that she knew that, if she told me to my face, she would not be able to persuade me to abandon my role in looking after our children.

I now knew that once more my gift with words had persuaded her to have me back - as it had when I had originally wooed her by letter to Australia to marry me. I did not like this - but she had invited me to return and I was enormously grateful. So I packed up our belongings in 13 tea chests and send them off - nearly sending off my passport too. I recover this at the last moment from the warehouse. If I had lost this, I might well have not been able to return in time to retain my residence rights in Australia.

Roger and I before I left had one final CIMRA Action, bringing up issues about the rights of Aborigines affected by the mines of RTZ at that years AGM. Two Aborigines then turned up in London, Gary Foley and Bruce McGuinness , two well known Melbourne based activists. They came to my going away party. I was very glad to see them and we had many a drink together. They told me that they would be travelling around Europe and wanted to have contacts with friendly groups. I gave them the contacts I had put together to help the Aboriginal Land Councils. I saw no harm in this.

The North Queensland Land Council was then working with others to set up a Federation of Land Councils to nationally co-ordinate the campaign to achieve recognition of Aboriginal rights to ancestral lands. Its officers had asked me to find funding support for an European Embassy set up under the authority of the planned National Federation of Land Councils. I had found the funding for an initial 3 year period. I now intended to report back to the land councils involved in Australia.

But I first needed time to think, to relax, to recover, to digest and understand what had happened to us as a family so I decided to make my way slowly back to Australia. I found an air ticket that I could break in countries en route without extra fares being paid. In mid June 1979 on a rainy day I set off with much tribulation for the airport and for Australia.

` I had tentatively worked out what I would do on my return. I anticipated much pain in Australia. Jackie's action had left me unsure that I knew how she was really feeling. I did not knew the future of our family but thought that the wise course would be for me to find separate living quarters and to spend extended weekends together with Jackie and the children.

My first stop-over was in the Greek islands. I headed first for the remoter island of Patmos just off the Turkish coast as it was associated with the Evangelist John, my favourite gospel writer -the one with most mysticism in him and a special loving relationship with Christ and with his mother.

Patmos has at its heart a hill crowned with a town. My energy was mad. I hired a motor bike and with my scarf trailing I accelerated past men who were sitting in front of cafes, luring, laughing, then heading off to safety. I was reckless in my flirting. As I moved from island to island, I found 2.5 days the average safe period for me on each. I was attracting men with my wild energy but I kept clear of any deep involvement. In Crete I travelled up through a valley of windmills to find the cave where once Zeus was born - only to flee from the advances of the guardian of the cave who wanted to lay me within the cave. I was both not having this and scared he would discover too much. I feared that men might react violently if they felt I had deceived them. After all I was still pre-op., hermaphrodite in body - but I was enjoying myself.

The most magical moment was when on a Sunday in Heraklion, on my last day in Crete, I heard while walking quiet streets the haunting foot tapping, music of the balalaika coming from a side lane. I turned into it and found a seaman (or so his boots, cap, air and sweater seemed to say) dancing in slow concentration in the street between two cafes. His arms were stretched, fingers clicking. It was enchanting and fascinating. One of the two cafes had men sitting at its outside tables. I sat down in the opposite and ordered calamari and the pine flavoured local wine, Retzina. The captain continued to dance. I applauded. Between dances men bought him drinks and snacks. So, when he paused after one of his dances, I lifted my bottle of Retzina and offered him a drink. Immediately he dragged me to my feet - and for the remainder of a wonderful day we danced together in this lane and enjoyed treats and drinks bought for us between dances. It was like the wonderful dancing scene on a quayside when Melina Mercouri danced with a seaman in the film "Never on Sunday" It was my favourite image of Greece - and how I lived it that day in Heraklion!

Eventually I had to leave to catch my boat. The men asked me to stay. They told me they would fly me to wherever I had to go tomorrow so I would not lose any time. I declined. Again the needed caution of the hermaphrodite. But the magic of that wonderful afternoon has stayed with me.

My next stop was Cairo. Still the mad energy continued. My recklessness was not purged.. I was still grieving the possible lose of my so dear family, the near lose of my daughters -and the death of my sadly unknown father. My way of mourning was that of the wild wake. I walked the dusty sand worn streets. I went with groups I met in Cafe's into the backstreets. I smoked hashish pipes, sitting on a bench against a wall in a narrow backlane, lit by oil lamps. On the other side of the road high ochre walls crowned by overhanging wooden stories of darkened wood. I marvelled at proud Nubian women walking barefaced, tall and graceful, amid the heavily veiled Arab women. I explored the dusty lofty and wonderful mosques and wondered in their national museum at the staggering beauty of the brilliantly made and painted marvels of Egypt's past.

I fell for the talk of the head waiter in a revolving restaurant high above an island in the Nile from when I could see the smog shrouded pyramids. He offered to take me to his village by the pyramids and show me traditional family life as well as the pyramids. I accepted - but was astonished when driven by him and a male friend into a high walled garden containing a cottage instead of being taken to a village. No one else was present. The garden was sealed with high wooden gates. I was offered a drink on the veranda of the cottage - and then shown the rear room. It contained an enormous double bed He looked at me. I reacted with absolute icy dignity but underneath was very scared. "You tricked me. Get me out of here, back to Cairo." I glared, savage, started to march towards the closed gate.

The two men argued between themselves in Arabic but they drove me back to Cairo untouched. It was not only rape I risked. Men in my experience are more likely to see my as a fitting target of their violence if they knew I was a pre-op transsexual.

I later made my own way to a pyramid, going up a long sloping narrow passage to a central chamber, a room made from colossal blocks, solid, heavy, cubic. I became extremely aware that I was at the centre of an structure that it was pressing in on me with enormous weight. Here I found myself alone with its caretaker. I don't know what I was giving off. Obviously something sexual although I found him unattractive. I soon to my horror found myself fighting off a sexual assault in what had become suddenly a claustrophobic overpowering nightmare place. I backed, found the small entrance, and fled down the long passage, to tumble out into the blazed bleached desert where a gaudily decorated camel awaited me like a figure from Sesame Street. I rode her from the pyramid to the Sphinx, my head wrapped in scarves, the ends flying in the wind. A crazy woman that even the camel driver seemed want ridiculously to seduce.. Perhaps it was because a wild and alone woman was a rarity in this society, but it wasn't easy for me.

It was just as well I was not staying there many days. I soon was on the plane. My next stop was in India. Indian local planes are very cheap. I had decided to simply pick one city and stay there rather than travel the country. I flew from Delhi to Jaipur, the famed pink walled city of Rajastan.

Oh, this was not easy either. That first night I found my hotel proprietor coming to my palatial bedroom, begging me to let him stay on in the room even after I had rejected his advances. It seemed that he had made a wager that he would lose if he was booted out! Eventually in frustration at not being able to make him leave, I crumpled into a ball and cried him out. Next day I was sitting on the lawn near the railway station again crying. I knew the next place that I had to go was Australia - and I dreaded what would happen. I was in despair.

A gentle man came up to me, a professor, asked me what was wrong and took me to a cafe. Over tea I spilled out the whole story about my life and my fear I would lose my children to this stranger. To my surprise seemed to regard me as a highly magical person, a privileged person. He set me up in another hotel from whence one day I watched a wedding procession go past. There were elephants and highly decorated horses in plumed head-dresses. I went down to the roadside to watch it pass. One elephant driver seeing my spell bound face, had his elephant kneel down and I rode with him in splendour on a tapestry bedecked elephant through the streets. This time of travelling seemed unreal to me. I felt ever more vulnerable, ever more alien.

I explored the bedrooms of ancient palaces with tiny mirror set into their ceilings to make them seem starlit and the reception rooms cooled by waterfalls; laughed sadly at the long tailed monkeys in the gardens; watched from my hotel room the camel and bullock carts in the street winding through a turbulence of bicycles and mopeds. The Indians seemed aware of my brittleness. I attracted more attention than I needed.

The professor offered to fund my operation. I refused this. I had no wish to become so indebted to any man. He also told me he wanted to become my lover -and on this score too I was cautious. He wrote to me after I returned to Australia, offering to send me saris. But by the time he wrote I was trying to rebuild our family life It seemed his letter came from another world. How could I explain my feelings by letter to someone of so different a culture? I could not find space in my life to construct a separate reality.

And thus I arrived back in Australia - my wild near suicidal grief spent. I had a really great welcome from Karina and Katie and a happy, good welcome from Jackie. But we had much to work on, much pain. I decided that I could not live with Jackie in her current home, her parent's spare mansion on the cliffs overlooking Melbourne's bay. I needed the company of others - and not such a long commuting journey to any work I found in Melbourne.

I instead found myself a room in a collective household, sharing space with the radical Walker Press. The people here were marvellous. I soon was spending 4 days a week here and the rest of the week with Jackie and the children. I was happy with this arrangement and thought it wise. A couple of Aboriginal centred organisations also offered me work.

I also discovered at a centre attached to Monash University in Melbourne a new and reputedly excellent medical team caring for transsexuals. It was the same team that was pioneering in vitro fertilisation of otherwise infertile women. When I went to see them, I found that my looking after the children was no obstacle to my treatment. They took me on, said they would need to assess me for themselves, but if after a year all had gone well, then they would schedule me for an operation.

But before I can do much else, I had to fulfil a commitment to travel to the Aboriginal Land Councils in Australia's far north for whom I had worked in Europe, passing onto them details about the funders I have found for them in Europe that would possibly support an embassy.. I travelled with a woman friend I had made at Walker Press.

We flew 3000 miles across Australia to Perth in Western Australia where I met Robert Bropho, an Aboriginal spokesman and Elder responsible for the traditional care of the land on which Perth. His people have lost this land and now live in poverty on Perth's outskirts. He agreed to drive us up to the Kimberley Aboriginal communities over a thousand miles to the north and to introduce us to communities along the route. When we first met, I noted his deep eyes, his brow ridges and thought how ancient was his face. I went silent and tried to tune myself in to his ways, to even use telepathy. He told me afterwards that this was what decided him that he could work with me.

I still remember the wonder of that journey in a friend's battered car. Flowers rioted across the land until it grew too dry. The dirt road's edge was then lined in bull dust - a fine powder created by traffic and piled deep. At night we slept under the stars; at dawn Robert would make us billie tea.

One stop was at a Catholic mission to Aborigines. When we arrived a priest was saying an outdoors Mass, at when my friend snorted in derision because she had been disgusted by how the missions had destroyed Aboriginal traditional culture. Robert got very angry. He said that if we did not respect the sacred traditions of our own people, how could he expect us to respect his?

In the rich mining region of the Pilbara, where hills are made of solid iron and its waterholes of enormous fame among Aborigines as the sites of sacred legends, we met the people who had been dispossessed of this rich land and left in poverty in their settlement of Jigalong, a former Christian mission. Here I leant Protestant missionaries had done all they could to convert the people from their ancient religion but had failed in this despite them labelling the Aboriginal religion as Satanic. Robert took us to one sacred place that the white man's law was supposed to have protected - but it had protected it for archaeologists not for Aborigines. The carved rocks were there sure enough, undestroyed -but surrounded by railway sidings. Robert commented that it had been murdered. Sacred places live in the heart of sacred landscapes.

The Aborigines had been left in shanties, low shelters made of the debris of white society. There were a couple of shells of geodesic domes - a failed trendy rehousing scheme. The shelters seemed randomly situated. But I have since learnt that many traditional Aborigines will site their camps according to the footprint of their totem animal or bird. So if one was an eagle and looked down, one would see a camp sited on every claw or pad.

` The Jigalong people adhered strictly to their own belief system. Some of them had founded a settlement about two hundred miles inland from them deep in the desert so they had the opportunity of bringing up their children well away from the influence of white society - and away from the devastating influence of pubs - for their people do not have the enzymes to cope with alcohol like whites.

Another nearby ( just a hundred or so miles away) Aboriginal community at Strelley had made money by small scale mining and purchased their own cattle station. Here they ran a bicultural school, teaching their children both in their own language and English - a near revolutionary innovation in the Australia of that time. They too had built a second settlement deep in the desert far from any white settlement, and especially from any pub, by a sacred water pool.

These "Strelley Mob" Aborigines after the Second World War fought with strikes and walk outs the exploitation of their people on cattle stations that had taken over their ancestral lands without their consent. One Aboriginal Elder told me that the Whites had made them look after the cattle. "If we escaped, they would bring us back, put us in irons, brand us like cattle, burn our feet. It was real slavery in those times, up until the 1950s." I was shocked that this had gone on until so recently.

When we arrived at the office of the Kimberley Land Council in Derby in the Kimberleys, which represented local Aborigines in the fight to recover traditional lands, we were surprised to find a delegation from the North Queensland Land Council arriving simultaneously, having driven thousands of miles from the east coast of Australia. They had a badly dented front to their car from the large red kangaroo they had hit. These two land councils were then nearly unique in that they had both been founded by an independent aboriginal initiative in the face of hostility from State governments.

I was delighted, surprised and secretly flattered when they told me that they had decided to come now for their first joint land council meeting because they both wanted to hear together the information I was bringing to the Kimberleys. They wanted to know the details of the funding that I had secured for their European embassy and other plans. But they gave me one unpleasant task. When they leant from my funders that Gary Foley had turned up at their offices, using contacts I gave him at my going away party, allegedly claiming to represent the land councils in Europe, they instructed me to tell the funders that he did not represent them. This cause me much trouble later from Gary. Another event that would also give me trouble was the incredulous anger of their white lawyer when he found I was present at meetings to which he had not been invited. He was deeply suspicious of me. It was as if he possessed the local Aborigines and I an interloper.

We spent much time at this meeting also discussing the rush by diamond exploration companies into the Kimberleys. They asked me to explain just what diamond mining would entail. I told them that diamonds were brought to the surface by ancient volcanoes. Mining them meant digging vast pits excavating the pipes of the volcanoes and also scrapping up all the surface clays, sands and rocks over many square miles to gather the diamonds removed by erosion from the extinct volcanoes. My account so shocked them that they asked me to repeat my explanation at a second joint land council meeting held under shady trees in a dry river bed at Fitzroy Crossing, the heart of the diamond exploration region. Present at this were elders from Noonkanbah Station, who had just given CRA (owned by RTZ of London) permission to explore for diamonds as long as they did not trespass on sacred sites or burial grounds.

My way of explanation was simple. We were all sitting on the ground. I took a handful of sand, picked out one grain saying that was a diamond - I kept this and put the rest into a separate heap saying that the mining company would consider the rest rubbish to be piled up out of the way. Soon the heap of "rubbish" would be higher than the nearby hills - as had happened at many mines. I also pointed out the nearby rocky hills that were the cores of potentially diamond rich ancient extinct volcanoes.

They knew of volcanoes. An Aboriginal song sung to me one evening in West Australia included their memories of the last volcanoes to erupt in Australia very many thousands of years ago. The South Australian geology department has verified that the Aboriginal accounts in their state listed eruptions in their correct order. The Aborigines also knew and valued certain diamonds before whites came to their land. The first diamonds discovered by Whites in Australia were in the shamanic pouches of Aborigines that had been murdered. The most beautiful of the larger diamonds contained rainbows and were thus considered very special and magic by Aborigines. The Rainbow Serpent was the name of a great Creating Spirit. Sometimes their "shamans" or spiritual healers used crystal stones in their healing rituals. I knew that many had carried quartz crystals - evidently some had carried diamonds.

I told the Aboriginal gathering that in Africa mining companies dug up the roots of diamond-rich volcanoes down a mile or more. The whole surface of the land near these old volcanoes might have to be scraped off and filtered for diamonds eroded from the ancient volcanoes. In Southern Africa hundreds of square miles have become "forbidden zones" because they are being mined for diamonds. I showed the pictures of African diamond mines that were in mining company Annual Reports.

This deeply disturbed the Noonkanbah Aborigines. They wondered if they had been misled into giving permission for diamond exploration. They asked me to come to Noonkanbah to explain what I knew to all their community. This was a great privilege. Noonkanbah was the first cattle station to be secured by Aborigines in this vast region and it was at a song and dance festival organised there that they had decided to form the Kimberley Land Council.

The elder who looked after me at Noonkanbah was Nipper Tabagee. His eyes were wounded by trachoma, his clothes dusty and old, but he was a man known as a "Dreamer", the highest of all Aboriginal titles. A Dreamer was a person who knew their ancient wisdom, who could travel deep inside to explore the ancient ways. He was respected throughout Aboriginal society. But he did not put himself on a pedestal. When we met we laughed in each others eyes. It was like meeting a favourite uncle that I had known since a child. I was much honoured by him taking me around and explaining to me what had happened to his people.

He took me an ancient volcanic hill, Djada, scarcely higher than a tree, that had been claimed by a mining company. He climbed up to a cave in its side and showed me human bones inside it. He told me "These were shot by the police when I was this high." He indicated about three feet high. These were victims of one of the last armed punitive raids sent out against the tribes around 1938.

This cave, he told me, also once housed their most sacred carved boards. Such boards I had been told represented the creative energy of the Ancestors or spirits who had formed the land. A mining company had smashed some of these boards and taken the others to their Melbourne office. The Noonkanbah people had fortunately managed to retrieve these and now had them safely secured elsewhere.

The result of these deliberations was that the elders reluctantly decided to withdraw their consent to diamond exploration on the grounds that they had not had sufficiently informed. Tabagee then asked me to tell their lawyer of their decision. I suggested that the lawyer might not accept my word for he already considered me an interloper. Tabagee and the other elders agreed that this was right - and then drove with me in a car without a windscreen down the few hundred miles of dusty dirt roads that led to the lawyer's office, leaving me red dust saturated while they went in to tell their lawyer their decision. They then made sure the media knew of their decision. Next day their eviction of CRA was national headlines.

And immediately a reaction came from Perth lawyers who worked officially on the behalf of Aborigines. They wanted to come up to see t if this eviction was really the Noonkanbah peoples decision and, if so, whether they could be persuaded to change their minds. Jimmy Biendurry, the Chairman of the Kimberley Land Council, asked me if I could stay until these lawyers arrived in two weeks time. If I could, he would use the time to take me around Aboriginal communities so that they all had the information they needed about mining. I agreed.

But I then found myself under attack from the very white people whom I thought would be supportive, those working with aboriginal communities. It turned out that some whites had planned to use the previous Aboriginal decision to allow diamond exploration to push for the Noonkanbah community to received additional funding as a "reasonable" community. I found myself isolated from nearly all local white people.

I also had one of my most wonderful sexual encounters. One night when making camp in the outback with a softly spoken, intelligent good looking Aboriginal man, who had taken me on a long journey to meet a community, I put my sleeping bag on the opposite side of the vehicle to his, Then there came a gentle call. "Jani, do you really want to sleep by yourself?"

I did not need to think long. I would have loved to sleep with him but had not thought it possible. I was still very much hermaphrodite in body shape. So I came around to his side of the vehicle and in the moonlight I explained to him why I was being so diffident. I explained how I had changed, how above the waist my body was as I wanted it, but not below. Then ensued the most delightful of nights. He respected my wishes but I still shivered with ecstasy. My skin, breasts, face - arms, all were much loved - and so was he.

With hindsight, I wonder at why I made such a rule. It seems I was as embarrassed as any girl with a deformity - and so I thought then of my now shrivelled organs. Given time and perhaps guidance, I might have come to terms with it. But then it represented part of my past that I had rejected. It represented a part of me that I had not managed to integrate. I did not hate this part of me - I simply could not use it sexually.

I also had what then seemed like a serious rape attempt on me. I was the last to go to bed one night when I was staying with two other women, not in an Aboriginal camp but in a town,. My room was deep inside the house. My bed a mattress on the floor. I swaddled myself in a sheet, lay on the bed and wondered if I should have shut off the noisy air conditioner that kept me cool.

Then suddenly I felt a hand go across my mouth. It was pitch dark. I heard no sound, no voice. I was helpless, swaddled so that I could not free an arm very quickly. The fact that he was trying to keep me quiet told me what I should do. I twisted my head aside and screamed and screamed and screamed.

Much to my surprise neither of my friends turned up. But the man did not do more. He withdrew his hand leaving only darkness. I still had not seen any part of him . I hoped he was appalled by the noise I had made and had gone lest he be discovered. I stopped screaming, twisted to the foot of the bed. Listened. The darkness was fearful. The silence continued.

Finally I crept as quietly as possible to the door and switched on the light. No one was there. He had gone. I went for my friends and found that my friend in the next room had woken, thought I was being murdered and in trying to get out of her room, opened her wardrobe door in the dark instead of her room door. The other woman was sleeping in a hammock on the veranda. She simply thought she was having a nightmare. It was frightening to find out how easy it was to get attacked - even with friends close by.

We armed ourselves with kitchen knives and hammers - but found no one in or around the house. One of us fetched an Aboriginal friend who lived around the corner. It was the same man who secretly had made love to me a week earlier. She did not know this. He said he found tracks outside and it was an Aborigine who attacked me. He mounted guard the rest of the night. I thus experienced another aspect of being a woman. I did not regain my voice for days. Secretly I wondered if I had been wrong, if in fact it had been my lover who had crept so utterly silently into my room and who stupidly had tried to stop me exclaiming with surprise before saying anything himself.

Luckily I was over this by the time the Perth lawyers came up to Noonkanbah. I was surprised by how pro-mining they were. They did not so much try to find out what the people wanted as to persuade the community to accept mining. They told them that a mining company would give them jobs in any mining town it built. Tabagee then asked me to repeat what I had told the community earlier. I then presented what I knew of the mining industry - including that so far no mining town had given Aborigines much more than menial work. During the following discussion in the local Aboriginal language, Nipper Tabagee interpreted for me. No one interpreted for the lawyers. The Aborigines maintained their decision to ban mining.

Afterwards the angry lawyers asked me to have a meeting with them. They took me well away from the Aborigines and then let loose at me. Who did I think I was, coming up here and interfering? "Did I intend to take over as their legal advisor? Should we resign?" I was astonished and appalled. I told them I was no lawyer and I hoped they would support the Aborigines in their decisions. They then warned me. "We know where you are going next. You are going to Oombugurri. You better watch it when you get there!" And with this mysterious threat, they left.

I had indeed intended to go to Oombulgurri. The Land Council had told me that this community on the far eastern side of the Kimberleys was deeply disturbed by the diamond exploration companies that were trespassing on their ancestral lands as well and had recently expelled a company owned by De Beers of South Africa. Despite the lawyers' threats, I accepted the invitation of this community to come and see them to share what I knew of diamond mining. One of their elders accompanied me - but I was warned before I set out that they had heard rumours that the government was very angry with me.

Later that day, when I was sitting in the shade of a banyan tree at Oombulgurri talking about diamond mining to the senior elders, a man and woman, I received a radio message from a Melbourne friend some 3,400 miles away. It was that the Federal Government had ordered the police in by helicopter to arrest me. This was so extraordinary, so unprecedented, so ridiculous a use of force, that I was amazed. Clearly someone in the Government saw me as very dangerous yet all I was doing was giving factual well documented information to Aborigines so they could be better informed when making their own decisions

I did not wait for the helicopter. I instead asked the community boat to return me to the nearby town of Wyndham. The boat was smaller than the crocodiles that played around the boat and lazed on the nearby banks. That night I was staying with the district nurse in Wyndham when the police came around and arrested me. I was only detained some hours. I learnt later that the police had to be ordered to arrest me and that they too could not understand why I was seen as so dangerous.

As for the crime for which I had been arrested, it was a newly promulgated regulation. The state government had been so angry that the Oombulgurri Aborigines had expelled De Beers, thus blocking "progress", that it had changed the law by issuing a new regulation. This said that Aborigines on their Reserve had no right to invite anyone to visit them - or to stop anyone coming onto their land. In future visits to them would have to be authorised by the state government. My crime was that I had not followed this new regulation. I should have flown over two thousand miles to Perth to apply for a permit and then wait some months for their decision. I was the first person prosecuted in this region for the crime of accepting an Aboriginal invitation that was not sanctioned by the government..

On my return to Melbourne, I restarted the process of trying to mend the scars in our family life. I did not try to return full time to caring for the children. We had agreed on my return to Australia that I would spend 3 days a week with the children but it was not long before Jackie asked me to permanently return. She said the children were missing me too much and that she herself hated not having adult company. I was not sure then about the wisdom of this. The wounds were still raw but how could I refuse? If the children needed me to live full time with them, I could not say no even although it took me from a very relaxed shared household where I was gaining many new friends..

I returned without saying much about my hesitations. I felt I should return for the sake of us as a family and to see if we can rebuild things even thou' I was not keen on being a nuclear family that did not share its home with any others. I enjoyed community households but we could only afford to rent a small house. We found a small hill top cottage in an inner suburb just before Christmas in 1979. As for Jackie's family, one aunt and a sister were happy to meet with me - but her parents refused. But despite all my fears, life together again started off very well. We were again a lesbian couple and for a while it was as if nothing had happened between us.

.

Meanwhile the Aboriginal Land Councils set up their national Federation thus fulfilling the plans discussed at the Kimberley meeting. They now had the body they planned that could represent Aboriginal interests overseas. I was appointed its mining advisor. I was also to train the Aboriginal staff to run "The Aboriginal Mining Information Centre" for the Federation. I agreed that after they were trained, I would resign leaving behind me a wholly Aboriginal staffed organisation that would have as its main role the work of advising Aboriginal communities.

When I visited Central Australia earlier, an elder had told me: "Only when you have greyhair can you know something of the secrets of the other gender." I was instructed that as a woman I was not to look at the male sacred sites but they told me where they were so I could avoid them But I found things were different in the south where some South Aboriginal women told me they would not even tell the Aboriginal men of the location of their sacred places. I saw them letting the men walk through these sites in ignorance. But when it came to Law matters , these southern Aboriginal women were powerful members of the same circle as the men and sat with the men.

I cannot generalise here. Even in the south there are many different nations, kinship groups or tribes that can differ in culture. In Australia as a whole there were over 200 different Aboriginal nations. Many of these still survive.

My own problems with people were mostly not with Aborigines but with white men. I found when I went to parties that many I fancied were not happy to simply flirt. They soon wanted to have sex with me. It was not so easy to put them off. I was often shocked by their single mindedness. Even if I wanted to, it was not always the right time. Also I often did not want to tell that my vagina was non-existent and I was not the slightest bit interested in anal sex. But if I put them off, they became irritated with my frustrating them - and a pest. As a newly sexually awake woman, I was surprised and appalled by the numbers of times this happened. Had I not understood males at all when I lived among them? Many seemed to be incredibly penis centred. When I said it was not a good time for sex, some still asked if there was a place where they could put it. This treating me as a sexual relief machine disgusted me. Why did they not simply go off and masturbate? If they really pushed me, I could suggest a lot of other appropriate places where they could get relief such as in a saw mill!

It was as if I were a field they thought they had a right to plough. They acted as if they were the patriarchal God separate from the earth and in dominion over her. I wanted not to be rude, not to hurt their egos - but there was no way I would give way to their demands. For me it was utterly demeaning and insulting.

But Jackie and I, Karina and Katie, we had many good months in our ship like house on top of a Northcote hill. We often went exploring the bush outside Melbourne together. We spent as much time as we could in the wild. My Aboriginal work was centred on an office at the foot of our hill. Then in late 1980, while I was helping with a vigil-protest, putting up a mock drilling rig on an Anglican Cathedral's tolerant lawns in the heart of Melbourne in support of the Aboriginal community at Noonkanbah, Jackie brought me the message that a local hospital has accepted me for the operation. It was 7 years since I transitioned. My eldest daughter was now ten, my youngest 9.

By a remarkable "co-incidence" my operation was scheduled by the hospital for May 1st 1981, the Beltaine festival when my pagan ancestors in Britain and Ireland celebrated life, fresh green spring growth and sexuality - and my Christian medieval ancestors have celebrated much the same with maypole dances. I now think this was a most highly appropriate day to come into the full use of my own sexuality.

By now I was utterly relaxed about having the operation. I felt it was hardly sex or gender changing for my brain and other aspects of me had been female since birth. Also by now, because I had been taking female hormones for so many years, my external male organs are now childlike, marked with a dark line along the natural line that my vulva would form and sexually useless.

Immediately before the operation, I made a quick trip to the male toilet and I gave my penis one final exercise, seeing how high up the wall I could piss in a final irreverent farewell salute to the male world! I have written a poem about this.

____________________________________________________

THE STORY OF THE UNWANTED PENIS

Now there is a clear divine need to sing a song to my penis

Before it gives its life that I might better live.

It too is part of the divine creation

Would I need in another culture to part from it?

But for me, it's transformation

was a magic that I welcomed.

I will sing of the 4.75 inch individual who lived in my groin.

Well, that was his size on average.

For he had a habit of growing and shrinking.

Now it was perhaps unfortunate for him

that he found himself living with a female spirit.

But did that make him a failure, a mistake?

Some similarly minded transgendered friends

reckon he was a disaster, an illness, a cancer,

the better cut off the better.

But that is not fair to him

There is nothing else like a penis in human kind.

He has a mind of his own.

He will strut up and down as he pleases.

Most males reckon that he is something special.

They celebrate his presence with high ritual.

So they should. He deserves an accolade.

But females know that he is not whole

until he is contained within them.

They know his weaknesses .

They know he often lacks stamina

and must be conserved

until the time comes for the grand climax.

The Last Rite I gave him

was to go to the bathroom

just before the operation

so he could spray as high as he could

up the urinal wall.

It was a salute like that given by fire boats to ocean liners

Thus my penis welcomed the birth of my more female body.

It sacrificed its sensitive skin to give me a vagina.

Its glans became my clit.

I am grateful to it and honour it.

I wanted to be utterly at home with my reformed body. I wanted to get rid of the "no-go" territory with my male lovers, to be utterly at home with my reformed body, testing it, enjoying it. I wondered just how it would be at last able to be able to fully relax and enjoy every bit of my body - and to have full sexual intercourse. I had been warned that this was a serious operation that could go wrong but when I took the pre-op drug that would make me unconscious I was not just relaxed but also a bit excited.

I had been approved for this operation by a medical team based at Monash University. It had subjected me to supervision by a psychotherapist, by a psychologist and by the Professor Williams who headed the team, for a year to see how I get on living as a woman - despite my having already spent six years doing just this before I first met with them. Effectively I had to be their "certified" woman!

It was an odd kind of psychotherapy for people like myself. I came to this clinic as did many others because we had self-diagnosed ourselves beforehand and chosen our own treatment. The year of waiting was to make sure we had made the right decision. This meant that the members of the medical team were not providing so much therapy as being examiners. This was a great shame. It deprived us of therapy that we might really have appreciated. We often found we could not confess any doubts without endangering our own treatment. Yet any intelligent person going through this process, no matter how firm the decision to enter this process, would also be constantly questioning themselves.

To give a personal example: I had lived so successfully as a woman for so long that I sometimes questioned my need to subject myself to a somewhat risky operation. I mentioned this to my psychotherapist on just one occasion. She immediately questioned her own assessment of me as a transsexual and decided I must be sent to yet another psychotherapist for another confirmatory assessment. My frankness had put into some danger my approval for the operation - and seemingly their view of my femininity. That was the last time I mentioned any doubts. This was a great disappointment for me. I would have enjoyed having the luxury of a proper relationship with my psychotherapist in which I could relax, be open, without fearing being judged.

I had a greater problem with the psychologist on this team. I was very cynical about many of the tests he gave me. I was not a naive subject for I had studied something of psychology as part of my training for the priesthood - and Jackie was also a trained psychological social worker. But he presumed that I was naive. Thus when I was given the inkplot test which entailed saying what I could see in a series of seemingly random black and white smudges, I could not take it very seriously. I imagined all sorts of sexual connotations, of pistons going in and out! I also found that I was not to be interested in warlike images - these were supposed to be masculine rather than feminine. In hospital for my operation a nurse told me that my whole file was in the nurses' station - and she had noted that I had "failed" my psychological assessment. He had decided that I would be better off as a man! I took this up later with him for I was angry about it and did not want him to make similar mistakes with other patients. Luckily I had passes all other assessments.

But despite these difficulties I had now finally reached the operation table. For the next few hours I was in the hands of an excellent female surgeon. When I woke up it was to a happy painfree daze. Soon I was beseiged by a group of curious nurses. One of them asked me: "Please may we have a look?" I was curious too. They lifted the bandages and took a quick peep. I looked too. A long slit, shaved. The nurses grinned when I asked if it looked all right. They assured me that I was now nothing other than totally female in shape . I happily drifted back to sleep.

Later I found that my new clit was totally erotic. The only thing lacking was a vagina of great depth. The surgeon told me that I had unfortunately provided her with too short a penis to wall the new vagina for a depth of more 2 or 3 inches. I was not sure whether I had always had such a short penis. As a child I had never examined that of others. It could be that the hormones had made it shrink. Perhaps it was a combination of both factors.

Everyone's body is a bit different. I was lucky that my body was very happy to take on a female shape. It acted as if it was a purely natural task that it only needed a little help from a surgeon or hormones. A consultant my medical team sent me to for a final independent assessment said he was very surprised by the degree of my change. He said he had never seen such good sized tits on a transsexual coming just from hormones. He remarked in some perplexity that it was a pity they had not looked at my chromosomes to see if they explained the fullness of the changes. Unwanted body hair had simply vanished. I also had a remarkably obedient hair cells on my face. After the operation most of them gave up on producing heavy hairs, - something that was not supposed to happen, according to the literature.

I had found the operation really easy emotionally. This was another argument in itself for my transsexuality. True males would probably have run away screaming at any threat to their genitals. I certainly did not feel castrated. On the contrary, I was now more myself and thus felt empowered. It was now obvious to me as never before that male organs had simply not belonged here, in my house. I was very much at peace with my post-op body and much more relaxed. I also felt safer.

I did not see this operation as making me a woman. The Castrati singers that were the glory of Italian Catholic church choirs up until the 19th Century saw themselves as male. I knew that I was a woman beforehand and had been since birth. Surgery does not give one a gender. It is plain daft that this operation is seen as a necessity in the laws of many counties before a person is allowed to re-adjust a wrong gender assignment at birth. I fear that some of today's male surgeons may get a sexual kick out of creating beautiful women - and may reject those candidates who would not make pretty women. I suspect there is a very high rate of suicides among those rejected.

As for me, this is my opinion.:

I am not female because a doctor certified me so

I am not female because a doctor made me so

I am not female because I am castrated

I am not female because I am conditioned

I am not female because I am attractive to men

I am not female because I am able to give birth

I am not female because I bleed monthly

I am not female because my clitoris is less than 0.7cms long

I am not female because I have breasts.

There are many women that break one or more of these criteria - and are still women. No, being female is something utterly deeper, something ultimately deep in our creation as individuals when we were within the safe sanctuaries of our mother's wombs. It is here that we are given our gendered wired brain, here that the true foundations are laid of our richly gendered lives.

One thing that the operaion did make possible was vaginal sex. I could now in theory make love freely, spontaneously, simply and gloriously, without having first to make a deeply personal speech or explanation.

And within two weeks of the operation, a diamond prospector was in my bed! He had originally come to see me soon after I came home because he knew I had been researching the vast diamond secrets of the Australian outback. He then became fascinated with me. A few days later he turned up with two large steaks and a bottle of wine. I was amazed. Jackie had to instruct me that an old fashioned Australian male custom was not simply to bring alcohol but also meat. Within days, although still sore, we were together. It was a purely sexual fling and nothing to do with love. But I thanked the Gods for sending me so quickly a lover that could help consecrate, integrate, my reshaped body. I was in pain but exultant.

However having a lover was difficult for me when Jackie and I were living together even thou' she had frequently told me she wanted me to have other lovers as she had enjoyed in London. I nevertheless did not feel free within our family home. I needed some privacy . Our house was very small so I suggested to Jackie that I rent a house a few doors away to give us effectively more space. I was then amazed and astonished when Jackie greeted this idea by launching a blistering attack on me. She asked how could I dare to even think of moving out when she had been doing so much to support me through my operation? She accused me of wanting to desert her and the children.. She had been amazingly good at looking after me when I came home from the hospital. I had no wish to make her feel rejected. I loved her - and my priority was still maintaining a relationship that allowed us to completely share our caring for the children

So once again my efforts to secure a little more independence collapsed. It turned out to be only a fleeting affaire with Graham so soon Jackie and I were back to living together an the manner that now seemed to be the pattern of our lives. But Jackie was preparing to be sexually freer. In the January of next year, 1982, she had her tubes tied.

As for my first experience of vaginal sex with men. Well there had been a certain wildness in it - a joy in being ploughed. But I had physically hurt. My vagina was small and raw. I wondered at the cruel fate that had created Aids to bring to an end with the 1960s age of sexual freedom on the pill before I could enjoy it. If I had been free earlier, I thought I would have enjoyed sex as much as any infertile woman could.

But when Jackie and I made love, there was much more gentleness, much more of tuning in to each other, much more of the shuddering delight of bringing each other slowly on to orgasm. Humans that are bisexual perhaps are the most fortunate. Maybe if conditioning did not have its play, many more would be bisexual. A wise Australian friend of mine once said regarding the gender of her partners that she fell in love and then noted the gender of her partner.

There is a male myth that their "balls" give men their courage and drive their creativity. For me the operation was no hindrance to energy or creativity. It rather unleashed it. In August I had my first article published as a journalist. It ran over three pages in a Saturday broadsheet and was nationally syndicated throughout Australia and advertised on television.

Not long after this Aboriginal elders were launching my book: "Massacres to Mining: the colonisation of Aboriginal Australia". They did this by putting into a traditional carved wooden bowl a little earth from the four corners of Australia plus dingo fur and emu feathers. On top of this they put my book and went to present it to the major mining companies as a book they wanted them to read.

This book launch was covered on all major television evening news programs - the more so because of the stupidity of RTZ's CRA subsidiary. They incredibly locked the door to their skyscraper in order to bar it to the delegation of four Aborigines and myself much as if we were a dangerous virus that would infect the entire building. They did this in the presence of TV crews -and compounded their self generated PR disaster by giving out a printed press release warning the broadcasters that I was much to dangerous to be reported as legal action was still being undertaken against a film of mine. This only gave us more publicity. I remember the PM particularly went to town with a long and very unfavourable report on the company's action

The film in question was the "World in Action" documentary entitled "Strangers in their own land". I had got this underway while I was in England. It was about CRA's thousand square mile bauxite mining lease that now dominated what was Eastern Australia's largest Aboriginal Reserve, destroying virgin forest that was being traditionally hunt/gathered until the company arrived. The film was seen around the world before it came to Australia. When the ABC televised it, they were sued for showing it. Justice Blackburn eventually ruled in the company's favour principally because of Aboriginal statements broadcast in interviews in this film. I remember that one of these alleged that CRA's subsidiary Comalco had stolen their land. The judge said this was libellous - for it was not the company that had taken the Aboriginal land but the Government.

Also found libellous was the allegation by Joyce Hall, the elder we had taken to tour Europe, that the company had "treated them like a pack of dogs." Not mentioned in the judgement was Joyce's undisputed evidence in court that the company in bulldozing down trees on its mining lease, had bulldozed her people's traditional Aboriginal cemetery. The local Aboriginal custom was to place the bodies of their dead wrapped in bark on platforms between trees. Mrs Jean Jimmy, a Mapoon elder, told us that when the bodies had dried out, they were then burnt and that the Aboriginal people would "carry the ash until a certain time, using the moon as their calendar... the ash has to go to a sacred ground. " But Comalco carelessly bulldozed these platform burials and burnt the Aboriginal corpses with the trees. The judge's only comment on Joyce's evidence as that she had been over emotional.

What I had found particularly alarming and revealing in the evidence presented in court was the company's "three generational" program of assimilation. They said that as the local Aboriginal culture did not have an appropriate work ethic for a modern industrial culture ( they would work to get the goods they needed then go "walkabout" back to look after their hunting grounds and perform the seasonal rituals), the company had employed white experts from Monash University to design an kindergarten program to remedy this by modifying the Aboriginal culture.

I was now in the full flight of my new journalistic career. My investigative articles were prominently published. I championed the small scale miners against the majors. One article was particularly successful. It revealed that CRA had plans to pump cyanides into 700 kilometres of the underground rivers of northern Victoria to extract the gold they contained. As farmers depended on wells sunk into these rivers for all their water, the article stirred up all kinds of community groups - and the scheme was abandoned by CRA.

I kept up my film work too. I set up and researched a film produced for the BBC Everyman religious documentary series. It was on the Aboriginal spiritual relationship to the earth and how this was threatened by indiscriminate mining. During this trip I was taken by Aboriginal women to their sacred places around Uluru, the massive rock whites call Ayers Rock. I will tell more about this incredible experience in the next chapter.

While I was away, in the relative freedom this gave her, around June of 1982 Jackie began another affaire. This was ironically and strangely with another Catholic priest, a lovely man. She told me she had fallen in love with him "head over heels."

I was happy for her but was threatened subconsciously for it gave me nightmares. In one dream a bomb had caught on some scaffolding and was hanging suspended over us like a sword of Damocles. Later in the same dream I realised that the bomb was also suspended over the nave of a church - in which a priest was levitating up towards the bomb, lying back at a 45 degree angle as he rose but failed to reach it. These dreams captured my insecurity and fears. I was scared of what this relationship would bring. It was the first time Jackie has fallen love with anyone else since we first knew each other. But it had a surprising consequence.

My diary recorded: "Last Sunday I moved to a bed in my office in case Jackie wanted to use the double bed in the other room. She came back late. I kept to my room and from down the corridor I could hear her laugh, sigh and pant with her lover. It is the first time this has happened within earshot of me. I had the strangest feelings. I felt both lonely and a bit jealous - but as soon as he had left, Jackie came to see me and then I was glad to see how happy she was. Jackie and I were closer together even sexually this week than we have been for a while. It was so good to see the old Jackie back and see her looking younger and more confident. I'm glad she's found a man to love her. She's needed this for so long. I've known for a long time that I cannot satisfy all her sexual needs. She tells me she thinks she's found someone she can be herself with who will never be a threat to us as a family. He is a lovely man and the kids do like him."

Another major change in Jackie was her decision to use an investment given to her by her parents towards buying a house. Up until now she had been adamant that buying a house would burden her spirit. This had stopped us buying a wonderful large and comfortable home in central Melbourne very cheaply soon after we started a family - a decision I had long partially regretted. "Partially" because the money we saved financed our trip to Europe and thus the work of setting up Aboriginal support groups in Australia. What we had been finding recently was that as rents were going up steeply the places we could afford to rent were getting smaller and smaller.

When we did find a place to buy, I also had enough journalism earnings to put down the deposit required. Jackie met the rest of the cost. I now felt sure in my bones that this house was really for her and not for me, that our relationship was doomed despite my remaining in love with her. If you, my reader, have detected a note of cynicism in my writing about our relationship, that comes from hindsight. I was then still naive about our relationship. I still enormously admired and loved her while I knew that she was separating herself from me. Knowing this, I decided I would show my love for her and the children by leaving her gift of the most beautiful and well sorted home possible to me. I thus spent very much time working on the house, making sure it's foundations were sound, drained, planting many trees around the house, helping to give it a fine new kitchen in the very centre of the house. While I was doing this work, inside I was crying. I knew that I was no longer a permanent part of our home.

But despite this we were still sharing a sense of the continuing beauty of life. The day we purchase the house was the first day of the Australian spring, September 1st, 1992. My diary recorded in an entry written some months afterwards:

" Today we bought our first house - a lovely wooden house on one level surrounded by trees and with seven rooms full of light. Katie and Karina are thrilled. I am pleased and a bit apprehensive - especially about the restumping and draining we have to do.

I did most of the practical work on fixing up the house - researching and finding contractors, learning much - for Jackie is working full time. I set aside my writing for a while. I work so hard on the house because I think I must have something to give to Jackie and the kids. My journalistic earnings provided the vital deposit but Jackie's Mother I think provided the rest of the funds.

"I had felt accepted as myself among the Aborigines, I was building my own reality, I was now writing features for the major local broadsheet, The Age and researching television documentaries for the Everyman Program of the BBC, but with Jackie, an old reality clinged on. And I was aware of her other world that rejected me... that she excluded me from rather (my in-laws) - I was never sure whether it was her or them (that excluded me).

"I feel that the house is particularly Jackie's - not just because it's in her name as most of the money was her's, but because it meets a great need of hers for space - for a place where she can happily bring her friends - and even her parents (apart from the problem of my presence) because it isn't ugly and has room aplenty to entertain." (As far as I can remember, Jackie stipulated that the title would be in her name.)

My diary continued: "But for now I am here. I have to grown into the house, get used to it. I've got better working space than ever before but I do not know if it suits me spiritually. I've done my best writing under terrible conditions. Poverty suits!

"But no doubt Divine Providence has brought us here - and there's got to be good reason for it.. Certainly it is doing Jackie's spirit good. She's suffered terribly from the conditions we've had to live in during the past few years - and from insecurity.

"For years and years Jackie has opposed us buying us a house (stopped us right back in 1972 - the only other time we really looked ) - said she knew it would oppress her spirit, dominate her.

"Yet now she felt the time had come - that it won't dominate her! That her spirit will still be free. We especially needed it now after the constant moving, after having to move into smaller and smaller hoses. At last we have one that will enable us to be hospitable.

"This house has been dominating me but I expect once all the basic things are done, I too will be free (and so it seems ) ... By Mid Nov. things have eased off with the house. We have a house warming party with some 50-60 guests (we also have a New Years Eve party with about 50 people.)

And Jackie made it obvious much too often that she did not want me around. This was extremely depressing for me. She would often take our children to meet with her relatives but I was not to meet them. I wondered if this was because I was a scandal to them but I now knew that this isolation from Jackie's relatives was not just their initiative but her own. I think she did not want me to witness this other life she lead. She did not want me part of it. We were growing apart.

` I had thought at first that it was her relatives and parents that had banned me from meeting them - although I had found this surprising given the open, friendly and accepting letter her father had sent us when we first told them of my transition. My eyes were suddenly opened to my naiveté and Jackie's wish to isolate me from her family when she told me to my astonishment that I was not to see her aunt again. This elderly aunt, her Dad's sister, lived nearby and was very open and friendly. I loved calling on her. I did this for years. We got on very well. It partially made up for leaving all my own relatives in England. But now Jackie informed me that she and her family found this too embarrassing - even though she rarely if ever went to visit her aunt without me or with me. I did what Jackie wished but now I felt and was isolated from all relatives but our children.

However this was a slow process. We still had many very good times together. We went camping frequently, rejoicing in the beauty and symmetry of wilderness. We spun tales together, we wove magical things.

But then would come a dark shadow and seem to hang over Jackie. She was depressed and would get angry and hurtful. The children would see me crying. Everyone was upset. I knew that only away from the house could come healing. I needed to be under trees in wild places. Then the tears would vanish as the beauty of nature distracted and called me.

The darkest day was when we went back to Europe for a brief visit and took a holiday in Italy planning to go to Venice and to Umbra. We went by boat from the airport into Venice and it was as beautiful and magic as ever. The children played in the great squares, watched and rode in gondolas. It was at first a happy time. I don't know what went wrong when then we went on to Umbra but the cloud came down. At the end of one awful day when we were staying in a heavily built grim hotel in a fortressed town, Jackie's anger at me became incandescent, smouldering, dark, so very evident that it opened my eyes. There was no way that I now could escape noticing the hate that was sometimes but not that often manifested in her. It seemed to be produced by the conflicts that were tearing at her for soon after it seemed that we were again the best of friends.

But a distraction came. My career now took another twist, again at the instigation of Aborigines. Jerry Bostock, an Aboriginal poet, came to visit from nowhere and gave me wonderful encouragement saying I should get more into film and television and to making films about his people's fight for justice . He gave me practical help too. We decided to go first for a film about the diamond industry, Aborigines and human rights. He also had suggestions about people I could work with who could teach me the ropes of this industry. It was thus that I met David and Vivien.

Divine providence often seems to come into my life when needed, to steer me into some new direction - teaching me other ways to fight for justice and a better world. Before very long we had set up a company called "Investigative Media Productions" and we were seeking funding for a four part Television documentary series on the human rights violations within the world diamond trade. David and Vivien were also very keen to work with Robert Bropho, the Aboriginal spokesman who had taken me up to the Kimberleys. It all seemed marvellous.

A year later, on January 24th 1983, a surgeon operated on me again in order to make my vagina of a more adequate depth by taking a skin graft from my inside thigh. I had become somewhat depressed at having a vagina of inadequate depth. I'd had a sexual fiasco with the diamond prospector Graham back in 1981 and on three other unsatisfactory one night stands. This second operation was for much more painful than the first and kept me a month in hospital, twice as long as was needed for the first.. It gave me a slowly healing large wound on my thigh like to that of a major burn - and which is treated in much the same way.

On Ash Wednesday, the hospital smelt appropriately like a bush fire. I could see from the ward the smoke of fires surrounding Melbourne and totally obscuring the horizon. Heavy red dust and smoke clouds were enveloping the hospital. A week earlier great drought caused dust storms had cut out the sun and now horrific firestorms were racing through the bush outside the city, incredibly raw, violent and devouring. Seventy two people were killed and about 2000 homes destroyed. Seven towns were practically burnt to the ground especially along the magnificent Otways coast.

The ashes from the fires fell around the hospital.. Melbourne was besieged. A friend building a home on a forested hill slope east of the city took refuge in a protected house in the nearby town. When she went back to her on site caravan, the only relics were her oven proofed Pyrex glass dishes. She kept these later on her mantelpiece for they had been melted into wonderfully warped shapes. The temperature in the firestorms had been over a thousand degrees centigrade. But the eucalyptus trees that had then burnt into blackened pillars of charcoal, six months later were putting out tiny baby branches as they started to regain their glory. Australian trees have long survived fires.

Musing in hospital I felt utterly uninterested in further one night stands. Now I had the physical possibility of sexual union, it seems something too special to waste. Lying on my back gave me tie to think and pray. I wrote: "Now I'm physically open , it is the time for becoming much more spiritually open and less self-centred."

When I returned home from hospital in February I found Jackie so exhausted that her speech was slurred. I noted: "Karina is maturing beautifully - Katie is in her difficult 10th year (it was hard for Karina too). She is no longer a little child but in pre-puberty." I suggested that Jackie should go and stay at her sister's, at Jenny's, for a week or two to give her a complete break. " Jackie's face lights up. Her speech comes back to normal." While Jackie was away, I loved having the chance to look after Karina and Katie by myself. By the time Jackie returned, both children were volunteering to do more and more household tasks and Jackie, impressed, said she will have to go away more often. We had both different styles of household management. It hurt that one had so dominated. However Jackie had only given herself a four day break and she rarely did this again while we were together..

After she had her break, I took my own much needed post hospital weekend break. I went to Mt. Buffalo Chalet high in the Australian Alps - and immediately had a brief affaire. It did not continue afterwards. I was finding that it was only away from the house and from Jackie that it seemed possible to make new male friends. This was true also for Jackie. She had met her friend Angelo while I was away in the Kimberleys.

Some three months later I produced my first film with a shooting budget raised from Overseas Aid Agencies. I co-produced with the West Australian Aboriginal elder, Robert Bropho . The film was called "Munda Nyuringu" and gave an Aboriginal insight into the colonisation of the Goldfields of Western Australia. I was attacked in the West Australian Parliament for "manipulating" Aboriginal people to make this film - yet every voice in the film was Aboriginal and the Aborigines approved the film before it was released. More about this later.(See next chapter)

After we had shot this film, I took the children away to Bali and helped Jackie get away to have a holiday by herself on Brampton Island on the tropical coral coastline of Queensland. I also took Katie to Europe and New York when our film got was exhibited in European film festivals. On returning to Australia, I received a wonderful welcome back from Jackie and the family. I had been away seven weeks - and felt very optimistic.

Then three days later George, a man Jackie had met on Brampton Island, came to stay. He was her new lover. She first booked into a motel with him but next day she told me that he wanted to stay at our home - so he came and stayed for ten days. I was not as comfortable with this as I had hoped. I wanted idealistically to be totally self giving but it was not so easy. Instead I felt as if a stranger in my own home. She then decided because we all were not so comfortable, to ask him not to stay with us over Christmas. I felt strangely guilty about this. I hated booting out anyone over Christmas. But with much relief we then had a wonderful family Christmas. On Boxing Day George phoned to say that he has decided to move semi permanently to Melbourne and by the first weekend of 1985 Jackie and he were back together - although this time only for a few days.

After Christmas Jackie and I went away with the children for a very peaceful week camping by a mountain river in the rainforest on the West Tyers River in western Victoria, an area of temperate rain forest rich in ferns and wildlife. We talked about our relationship and I felt much reassured. She told me that her relationship with George would not displace me from my place in the family. In the ensuing weeks Jackie and he spend an occasional night together but slowly that relationship came to an end. Jackie told me she found him boring and that it had been more a meeting of bodies than of minds.

Around this time the children start at a secondary school (leave out?, Princes Hill) which they much enjoyed. One of the harder decisions we had to make as parents was what to advise the children to say when they were asked who I was. Jackie was especially keen that they kept quiet about my real identity. She said she thought this would expose them to being teased - or us being exposed to tabloid newspaper curiosity.

In their pre-school days this had presented them with few problems or so it seemed. When they were old enough to understand, they had learnt that I had fathered them and then changed my gender role as had some others before me - such as some American Indians. They knew I still loved and cared for them. They said I was their second Mum, but for simplicity sake, Jackie and I had them call us both by our first names.

But when they started school, we had to decide what to tell them to say when asked who were their parents by teachers and classmates. My own instinct was to be open to those who asked who were friends or whom I judged appropriate. That was how I acted with my own friends and acquaintances. If it had only affected me, then I would have been still more open. I was proud of who I was and felt no need to hide. I could understand why other "transsexuals" sought privacy - but I thought, and still think, that my own role as a weaver of magical and sacred stories, as a priestess, demands of me that I walk openly on the risky public lands where I could be hurt but where I could also find understanding. I also knew that if no transsexuals are open, then society would not change and become more understanding. I had before me the fine example of Jan Morris, a transsexual woman who wrote her story in "Conundrum". I was told by Jackie's Aunt Eve that that she understood me much better because of seeing Jan Morris on television talking about her own transition. She said that Jan had come across as a very fine woman.

But Jackie was a very private person and she left me in no doubt that publicity would make it impossible for us to stay together as a family and would thus bring to an end our dream of being able to bring up our children together as partners, even as two women who were still lovers - for our physical affection for each other continued for very many years despite all these changes.

The other fear we had was that our children might be cruelly teased by ignorant children in the playground. This might well have happened if our family becoming a subject of press gossip. We believed that if my previous work as a priest became known, then there was no way we could have prevented the tabloids making us household names and faces. Thus it seemed it was most important to hide my vocation to the priesthood.

This was for me a terrible contradiction. The priesthood was central to my life and had been so since I was a young child. My instinct was that this demanded of me an openness and a trust in providence. Hiding my gender past entailed also hiding much of my spiritual path. It sadly seemed I must keep quiet about the religious nature of my path lest I put at risk our family. This seemed to be the right decision for that time

Thus Jackie and I agreed to a subterfuge to protect us all and help us survive as a family. Our children would say when asked about their family: "We have two Mums, Jackie and Jan." But when pressed by teachers or class mates, they were to say that I was really their aunt. It was probably presumed at their school that we were lesbian lovers which was close enough to the truth. The schools knew Jackie and I were legally joint custodians of our children (our legal marriage had ended at the insistence of my doctors as a condition of my treatment).

There were occasional minor problems. At one primary school dance, a woman asked me: "Is she your daughter?" and was answered simultaneous by Jackie, standing behind me, and by myself, with a "Yes" much to the questioner's perplexity! But the subterfuge normally worked - although Jackie continued to fear media exposure and I continued to dislike not being fully honest.

I have no doubt that nonetheless rumours did circulate. When I researched a film for the BBC's and ABC's "Everyman" religious series in 1982, I went to a Catholic mission in far North Western Australia called Kalumburu. I had heard before arriving that this Benedictine mission had stopped the World Council of Churches investigative team on Australian racism visiting their mission by putting flaming oil drums on the airstrip. I thought they might stop me coming too, so I simply hired a light plane and flew in, walked up the avenue of palm trees and knocked on the door.

The missionary who opened the door was astonished to find a journalist facing him. He muttered something about "permits" but I looked as innocent and naive as I could contrive and told him I was working for the religious affairs departments of the BBC and ABC and was putting together a program about Aborigines. I added that I had heard much about Kalumburu and wanted very much to meet the missionaries of so historical a mission. He hesitated, then opened the door. I was in.

For the next two hours I sat on the veranda while the missionaries plied me with their home made wine and beer and told me tales about the mission. Eventually the conversation came around to Aboriginal spirituality. I asked them; "Do the Aborigines still have initiations?" "Oh no" came the answer. "They are Christians now and have put all that sort of thing behind them." I then asked about something I had heard about down south from relatives of Kalumburu Aborigines. "Didn't one of the carved sacred boards come up here recently?" These are boards that symbolise the creative energy of the Ancestors and the land. They traditionally travel along the ancient Dreaming Tracks from community to community, accompanied by dances and by songs, recreating the journeys and energies of the creating Ancestors. The missionary I asked quickly admitted: "Yes, one did come up here. The Aborigines here were highly embarrassed when this pagan thing arrived and asked us if we could help by quickly sending it away by plane. We flew it off to some other community."

My preparation for this visit had included reading a book by a Kalumburu missionary about their work. This reported two similar incidents in 1947 when Aboriginal elders brought in similar Sacred Boards: "They went completely wild. It was disgraceful to discover that ... the guardians of the boards - which were not a symbol of Aboriginal culture but symbols of a most degrading practice - were Christians from the mission. The boards were destroyed before their eyes." In 1950 when boards arrived again: "That such boards have semi-religious significance is open to question, what cannot be denied is the degrading influence which this practice has on our Christians and on the work of the mission. It cannot be denied either that such practices have contributed to the destruction of their race." ( Fr. Perez "Kalumburu" 1977, p 122-3)

At the end of the conversation, I asked if I might if I might speak with the Aborigines. The missionaries said "Of course!" and told me the way up to the huts on the opposite hill. The Aborigines were suspicious of me when I reached them. They had seen me talking to the missionaries for ages and drinking wine. The elders had banned alcohol from this Aboriginal settlement. But they were astonished when I told them I was carrying greetings from their relatives down south. "How do you know them?" they asked. "I work with the Kimberley Land Council" I told them and continued; "The missionaries have told me that you no longer initiate?" This provoked a sudden and furious denial. "That is not true. We bring up all the young men properly". I grinned to show that I was on side and said: "They told me too that you got them to fly the sacred carved board away?" They laughed; "The Board had next to travel along the Dreaming Track to another community and we decided to persuade the missionaries to take it for us!"

What I learnt here I wrote up for the "The Age' as Everyman had decided not to go to Kalumburu. But I was astonished when the missionaries discovered somehow that this female reporter had once been a member of the Catholic priesthood - and banned "Everyman" from visiting them. I was amazed that twelve years after I left the Catholic priesthood in England, stories about me were reaching even the remotest corners of Australia.

On one occasion, a journalist from "The Age, Melbourne's premier newspaper, interviewed me over dinner about a new book of mine about Aborigines - then switched off his tape recorder and asked: "How did Aborigines take your change of name?" I was dismayed - but not totally surprised. I wrote for that paper and, although everyone there treated me well and professionally, I had wondered if rumours had reached them. My first publisher certainly had known - for we shared friends from before the time I transitioned. But when I explained to this journalist, that Jackie and I had decided on no publicity about my former gender role in order to protect our children from teasing, he agreed not to write about this aspect of my life.

I would much rather we had been able to be open and that we had not had reason to fear the intolerance of society. Our shared decision then for good or ill was that what was most important for our children was that both of their parents managed to stay together to love and care for them and that they were protected from teasing. Jackie had made a difficult decision in agreeing that if I transitioned, we would nevertheless stay together. I had no wish to make things harder or impossible for her.

Although it was generally supposed by many that Jackie and I were simply lesbians, we could not simply leave the story at that. We had also to explain to the curious why we both had the same last name - and why there was a family resemblance between both of us and the children. We thus told the children that, if pressed, they were to say that I was the sister of their father.

I did not understand at that time what a strain this deception would put on our children. My younger daughter in her early adulthood once said to me with some anger: "Do you know what it was like to spend all those years having to lie about you? I wanted sometimes to boast about you, but could not." It seemed she thought she had to lie simply to protect me from embarrassment. I knew, but she did not, that she could have been honest about me if protecting me had been the main consideration. I did not need protecting. Although I sometimes felt very vulnerable, if my own reputation had been the only consideration, I would have gritted my teeth and gone for openness.

But I think she sometimes did understand that protecting them had been the main consideration. When eventually a newspaper exposed my gender background while I was working for the BBC's Panorama as a producer, she phoned me up from Australia in some indignation, to say: "Jani, I wanted to tell you that you don't need to protect me any longer. You can be open now. Go and fight them"

I cannot speak for my children -as I have said. I know they missed not having someone in the traditional father role in their lives. I am still glad for the wonder and privilege of sharing in their growing up.

But perhaps when I was living with our children, I was not as ready as I am now, not prepared enough to tell this story - to deal with the conundrum of my role as a priest who became both a sexual father and a mother rearing them.

As our daughters grew up, they were ever a delight. Karina was always the shy one - but not so shy that both of them did not become "Goths", standing out from among most of their secondary school friends because of their black clothes and whitened faces. I had feared that they might react against my own radicalism and become reactionary - but totally independently of me they became founding members of an organisation in Melbourne called something like "Young People Against Nuclear Arms." I was surprised and very pleased by this

When I brought Katie last to Europe, she arrived with a beautiful butterfly painted on half of her face. Later, as it was autumn, this changed to a golden leaf. My mother was a bit askance over Katie's choice of clothes and was delighted when I told her that I had stopped by a clothes shop at Katie's request.

"Oh, you got Katie some more clothes. Excellent! What did you get her?" my mother asked.

My response of "A bowler hat" left my mother laughing.

Karina delighted me when she began to write short stories. They revealed that this girl who at home was quiet and retiring, had a keenly observant eye and sense of humour. I was surprised by the insights they revealed. I was also pleased that like my mother before me, she also had a talent for writing. I thought that in the short story category, she was much better than me. I treasured all the writings she shared with me. She gave me a most precious gift of a folder filled with her short stories. They were brilliant, keenly observant and humorous. Now I thought, at last I know what you are thinking when you quietly watch from the side! I am as I write on the other side of the world to her and I miss her deeply - all the more so because of later events that would rip us further apart.

Jackie and I had never stinted on the childrem's artistic development. We wanted above all to keep their imagination alive, fresh and creative. This we thought was the finest thing we could do for them. Creation was not completed with one big bang. We are still engaged on the same work. We defended our children from school uniformity not just be taking them out frequently into wilderness so that nature would feed them, not only by putting them in schools with a reputation for creativity, but also by ensuring that they had all the artistic materials they could need. Katie particularly took to art. Our family home was increasingly filled by her sculptures, drawings and paintings. Today she is still studying art and gets frequent commissions and exhibitions. As I write, she is doing extremely well at university. Her feeling for nature and her artistic vision helped make our family home very beautiful. But it was not just her paintings and drawings that covered the walls. Karina was also prolific and excellent - and Jackie too was most talented. As for me - my art form is mostly spinning words.

My own writing was also progressing. I now had another book project. Melbourne was about to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of its founding by turfing its main street and having a party. I felt the celebration showed no significant consciousness of the disaster that happened then to the local Aborigines. For every sheep station established on Melbourne's outskirts, the diaries of settlers of that time revealed that an average of fifty Aborigines were killed, sometimes by putting strychnine into bread and giving it to families. Aboriginal skulls were nailed over farm doors in order to scare Aborigines away.

I discovered that the famous Tasmanian Aborigine Truganini, rightfully famous for her beauty and wrongly reported to be the last of her still existing people, was a leading member of an armed group that had fought against the invaders who set up Melbourne. As I found more and more settler documents about this armed resistance it seemed this story would be a worthy tale for a book.

I learnt that before Melbourne was founded there was nearby in the hills an Aboriginal spiritual centre where men and women lived who specialised in teaching dancing, music and spiritual skills and were supported by gifts of food from their students. There was also a major fish farm with canals joining river systems together. An settled Aboriginal population was supported by elaborate woven dams and fish traps. Some of their houses had stone walls. The first Europeans reported finding houses with roofs so strongly made that they could support the weight of a horse. What the locals had to say about these strange newcomers riding over their homes' roofs was not recorded. In East Gippsland the Aborigines reported seeing centaurs when they first saw a man on an animal they had not seen before, the horse.

At first the Aboriginal elders feared that the invading whites were ghosts. The local Aboriginal culture taught that the spirits of dead went to islands off the coast and that ghosts were white. So when white people arrived on "floating islands", some thought these were the dead returning. The Aboriginal word for whites in Victoria is still "num" meaning "ghost.".

The new arrivals found Australia so utterly alien that they brought with them all their own foods and seeds and avoided eating local vegetables. One white Melbourne woman was thought strange by the other migrants in that she was growing local yams. Most found Aborigines very scary. The invading migrants had been breed on stories of cannibals and black witchdoctors. Few among the settlers did not scorn or demonise the indigenous Aboriginal spirituality.

It was not long after the first whites arrived that the Aborigines learnt the truth of it. There was an Aboriginal woman leading a militant band who used to taunt the elders for their mistake, saying these were no ghosts but savages from another land. The Aboriginal nations then co-ordinated over a front hundreds of miles long their fight to save their lands. This meant the road from Melbourne to Sydney needed forts along its length to keep it open. These wars lasted over twenty years - and only ended in southern Australia when the gold rush brought so many invading colonists onto Aboriginal lands that the indigenous inhabitants were overwhelmed.

I was fortunate for this writing project to be lent a mudbrick cottage in the upper valley of the river Yarra on which Melbourne had been built and thus to escape briefly from the stress at home. It was 1986 and Jackie and I had been bringing up the children together for seven years after my traumatic return to Australia and five years after my final operation. It was again becoming evident that Jackie was again being torn between wanting to be independent of me and wanting me around. This cottage gave both of us a break.

It was a privilege to live in this wilderness. My spirit fed itself from it. One evening in the cottage working on a computer, I saw the hammock on the veranda starting to swing. I was amazed. There was no wind. Then a head emerged from the centre of the hammock. It had a wide flat mouth, two eyes, low forehead. It clearly belonged to a very short body.

Then suddenly it leapt, fluttered, down to the ground. It was an owl, a Tawny Frogmouth (so called because of its wide mouth). It hopped into the house and sat on the coffee table watching me. It was a marvellous visit, quite magical. It came back several times to see me. I was also given a young wallaby to look after by a ranger of the National Park on the other side of the river. Its mother had been killed by a car. It would stand by the sink and watch everything I did - as long as I left the kitchen door open so it could escape if needed. I once shut this door - and immediately had a panicked wallaby leaping from surface to surface, from armchair to table top to floor to chair - with its long tail sweeping everything down.

But this writer's cottage was only briefly available to me. While away from home, I had a brief affaire with a local man - but it only lasted for a couple of days and did not affect anyone at home. Tensions again mounted when I returned and worked from our family home. Our usual way of dealing with these was to go away into the wilderness as often as possible. In the peace of the rain forest, or the red river gum forest of the northern Victorian valleys or in the high mountain ash of the hills, we soon found our own peace. The tensions usually concerned Jackie's lovers. I wanted her to be happy and she me. But when they came to the family home I found it a strain. She told me that these men would not be allowed by her to separate us. I said the same of my lovers - my own very brief affairs, although much delighted in by me, were always when I was away from home. There was no way that I would let them destroy the most precious thing in my life, my family.

Years had gone past on this basis - with us living together, sleeping together, but having some outside adventures with men. But in 1986, five years after we moved into our new home, when we had been together for some 17 years, I noted in my diary I was not at all sure about the wisdom of us remaining living together.

She was more and more frequently switching moods and picking fights with me at home. Sometimes cruel things were said. These often had me in tears, confused, not knowing what was happening or how best to react. I think now they came out of Jackie's own confusion and perhaps out of her need to tell me that I should go. I can remember well how the children were very upset by this. They ran to Jackie on many occasions and asking her: "Why Jackie are you trying to drive Jani out". I can remember many times getting into the car and just "sitting there, crying, thinking I must leave but not knowing where to go." I was near suicidal with grief on occasion. I was always however rescued by the children or Jackie coming out, telling me I was in no fit state to drive and asking me to come in.

I was not at all sure about my own wisdom in staying on - nor happy about the way the children became involved in trying to keep us together. I feared I was using them and my grief to try to get through Jackie's anger so that she would see me as a person whom she was hurting for wanting nothing more than to stay with our family. These dark episodes would then be followed by lovely times together. We would renew our pledges to each other, rejoice in the sacredness of life. We had many happy times together.

But my instincts were right. Jackie's affairs would finally bring an end to our relationship. It happened in a way that felt appropriate and part of our destiny.

In 1986 Jackie came home from the local La Trobe University where she was doing a Dip Ed with an amazing story. She had walked into the bar and found there a friend of her's from over twenty years ago. It was Jack , a man that she had told me about as one of her first flames soon after we came to Australia. She had told me how when she was a student, she had met this lovely man and lusted after him, flirted with him, but had not been able to follow this up as he married another woman. She had even taken me to a certain pub because she had gone to it with him. She now found this same man sitting in the bar, nursing a beer, trying to drown his sorrows for he had just been thrown out by his wife, deserted for his own friend.

Jackie had immediately fallen in love with him again. She came home excited and happy and told me all about him. There seemed to be an amazing pattern to this. I could not deny fate. I was very happy for Jackie. And when Jack came to visit, I found him a lovely and interesting guy - the kind of person I would also welcome as a friend. He was also a sensitive visitor to our family home. He was careful to avoid staying in my space without consulting me.

A few months later, in the September of 1986, I went for a much needed holiday with Karina. It was a trip I had promised her since I had taken Katie to England as she had been more interested in New Zealand than in a trip to England. I have delightful and somewhat poignant memories of it. One of the highlights was visiting the Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow Warrior, as it lay beside a quay. It was badly damaged by a French bomb that killed a crew member, sabotaged to stop it going to the French nuclear tests. When we went aboard, it had next to it a replacement ship, a larger vessel with a crated helicopter on its deck being prepared for an Antarctic trip.

We were shown over the vessel by two crew members, Davy and Graham Woodhead. In the engine room a minibus sized hole marked the site of the bomb explosion. Metal pieces had been driven through steel decks by its force, the whole ship twisted. The quarters of the crewman who died had been sealed up. Karina was almost reverential in seeing this legendary vessel and took time to sketch it.

She then navigated as we drove down the North Island, en route travelling by boat down an underground river to see glow-worm stars massing overhead like another milky way, then via a Maori village swathed in the smoke of hot springs to Wellington to catch a boat to the South Island. We crossed mountains to see glaciers where wild winds smashed our car door, then past a maze that she solved in 44 minutes ( I take 48) and over a pass where the Kea parrots in the snowfields eat the rubber window surrounds off our hired car. Other delights included a steaming outdoor scuzi bath with wonderful moonlit view of snowclad mountains. We also shot river rapids on jetboats that did wheelies on water and went by helicopter up to high snowfields where Karina danced in the virgin snow. In all it was a marvellously exhausting and enjoyable holiday. The memories of this are poignant for it was to be one of the very last things I was to do with my much loved and cherished daughter Karina.

The end of us as a family that lived together came soon afterwards when Jackie told me she wanted to go and live with Jack in his flat. At first this seemed like a peaceful resolution of the tensions between us. I told her that she was free, had always been free, that if she wanted to go and live with Jack , then she could do so. I would be happy to stay and look after Karina and Katie who were then 16 and 15 years old and enjoying their relationships with boy friends. I assured her that if she decided to do this, she would always be welcome to come back to stay at any time; she would always have a place in the house and she would never need to feel that she had cut herself off from us.

Jackie was at first very pleased that I was not upset by her going to live with Jack . But then she changed her mind, presumably after discussing the idea with Jack , and maybe with her family. She told me she had decided to stay on in the house and that I must go instead. I now think I was naive in so presuming, but I thought she had changed her mind so she could better care for the children while staying in the house with Jack . I wanted to give her space to be with him so I very reluctantly agreed to leave. I found myself a flat nearby where the children could easily come to see me and occasionally stay.

I was then mystified when Jackie insisted on giving me back the deposit that I had paid on the family house. I had not asked for this and had not expected it. I simply was not interested in money but in making sure Jackie and the children had a good family home.

But I was very surprised and dismayed when six months later Jackie moved out of the family house into a flat with Jack , leaving the girls, who were then about 15 and 16, living there on their own or with their boy friends as they so choose. Jackie assured me she would call in daily to make sure that they were all right. I was perplexed. Why had she insisted on me moving out if she herself did not want to live in the house?. Why did she not want me to return to care for our teenage daughters when she herself was not living there? I was worried that the girls were still too young for this to be a wise decision .

It was some time before I realised that she may have insisted on me leaving and on giving me back my deposit on the family home because she wanted to make sure that I had no legal claim on the family home. Perhaps she was so advised by Jack or her family. If I had been at all mercenary I could have argued, given all the work I had done on the house, that I had a far greater claim on it than simply my deposit. But I did not argue this. I did not even see what was being done.

I only came to understand this some six years later when Katie and her partner Tree, by then the sole occupants of this same commodious family house, decided to my delight to offer me a room of my own, a "granny room", to use when I was in Australia. When Jackie heard of this, she immediately vetoed it, telling me she could not permit it for: "I may want some day to move back into the house".

I was stunned. Why was her possible future need more important than my being able to stay with my daughter? It seemed to violate all the values that we had held dear. I was not given the option of agreeing to move out if Jackie had ever wanted to move in. She has not moved back in the following 6 years. I don't think she ever intended seriously to do so. Katie remains very important to me and I would have loved to have had a base in her home. It would have made me feel much more accepted, much more part of the family. I now have no home in Australia. But the shock of this veto helped me realise how much I had been blinkered by love and how naive I was. I knew of no other way of loving than of being trusting. I knew this left me vulnerable.

But at that time, I still loved Jackie and the idea that she could have been putting a financial consideration before my relationship with our children was not one that then would have crossed my mind. I then simply could not understand her actions.

A further decision of Jackie's was that the address to which she moved to live with Jack was to be kept secret from me. She had instructed the children to make sure of this. She said this was because Jack wanted his home to be a sanctuary where he could relax. I accepted his need - but wondered at being treated so after Jackie and I had been together for twenty years. I wondered if the reason was that she needed to go to a place where my words, my gift of the gab, could not reach her, where she was sealed off from me.

But for me personally moving out proved to be a liberation for me that I had not sought but was nevertheless much needed. I found that one male friend strangely alike to my father, with his red hair and good looks, was actually interested in me. While I lived with Jackie this had not been obvious to me - and indeed he may well have wondered if I were lesbian. But now I began a wonderful affaire with him, and thanked God for my unexpected freedom. This was my first real affaire as a woman. I slipped into it as if born to it. I loved being with him. I felt I was now finding at last my own identity.

I realised now that when I was living with Jackie, the old me had been kept alive. I had not been free but caught into a role, a more male role, the role that Jackie did not do. I had not felt free to follow my instincts. This I had not resented, I merely saw it as a necessary compromise. I think this role play happens with most gay or lesbian couples.

Katie was now with a boy friend nicknamed Tree, a lovely man with a great sensitivity for plants and nature. Karina was with a boy friend named Joe, the ex-flame of her closest girl friend, a child prodigy who entered university at 14 and who had now left university, he confessed to me, in order to obtain some maturity, He was a counter-point to her intellectually - and she found him much fun. I wrote at the time: "They are both blooming with love. It is great to see them so happy."

By now my proposal of a film about the world-wide diamond industry was attracting funding. In 1988 I learnt that the ABC was enthusiastic about it and willing to invest heavily in it as long as I also found an overseas network to help share the costs. While they were working on this, they offered me another job - to research the life of Daisy Bates, a legendary white woman who lived with the Aborigines for many decades. In 1989 this took me on a trip across Australia.

I discovered in the Australian National Library some 80 boxes of her unpublished writings about the Aboriginal people that she met. I was fascinated by her life. A product of a large Irish family and a poor-school, with no university education, in the days of misogyny, how did she get to be the first woman to join a joint Oxford-Cambridge expedition? I found that after driving cattle around Australia she went to England and then re-invented herself as a corseted lady who had met the Editor to the Times to give herself a new status on her return so she could secure support for the intellectual and writing life she craved. When she was told by a missionary that Aborigines had a vastly worse deal than she thought, she took the opportunity to ride up by horse over a thousand miles to his mission in the Kimberlies to see for herself.

This set her on a path that occupied the rest of her life. She learnt scores of Aboriginal languages and advocated setting aside the centre of Australia as a colony run solely for the benefit of Aborigines. But what kind of woman was she? Was she a do-gooder, an academic building a career on the backs of Aborigines or a person who simply enjoyed being with this ancient people?

I decided to travel by train across Australia and then to drive back following the route described in her diary to see if this would help me find the answers to these questions. The adventures that then ensued I will describe in the next chapter. What I found out taught me more about myself than I expected. What is germaine here is to note that everytime I left our family setting on such a project, I experienced the world as extremely rich and enriching - and this took away from me all the cobwebs of domestic trials and pain.

I also learnt what it was to be loved as a woman from a man who were in touch with the wild, a tracker living alone in the deserts of the Nullarbor Plain,. Again it was but a one night stand, but it was wild and rich. It also helped me understand males in a way I could not before. I met him near the border between West Australia and South Australia and asked him to take me into the interior to find an ancient ceremonial place of which Daisy Bates had written. He was a magnificently wild lover. I felt ploughed, seeded, made fertile. It was a wonder finding my own way, of being sexually alive.

Then at last after many delays my diamond series was fully funded. It was an expensive and ambitious project. I had to raise its production budget of $1.2 million - quite a step up when my previous film had cost around $70.000.. It was to be shot in five continents and meant going away longer than I ever had previously. I remember as if it were yesterday saying goodbye to Katie and Karina. They were standing by the door happy and glowing. They told me not to worry about them - that it was great that I trusted them. Yes, they had grown up - and would show me that they were. They said they would call on Jackie if they needed help. With love we separated and looked forward to seeing each other again.

But alas it was not so easy. One of my Australian funders started to get cold feet at the thought of taking on a major cartel - and made moves to withdraw pledged funds. I was in London trying to sort this out for many weeks. I made regular phone calls to Australia to make sure Karina and Katie were all right. When Karina took one of the calls she seemed less shy, more sure of herself. It was a good conversation. About two weeks later I phoned again - and this time it was devastating.

My call was taken by Joe, Karina's boyfriend. He promptly told me he was talking in her stance. He said they had decided that I was not to have any more contact with her until she decided again to talk to me! I was stunned. It was so utterly unexpected

Joe went on to say that Karina wanted me to know that it was nothing to do with my gender change - and that the holiday we had just had in New Zealand had been wonderful. To my puzzled inquiry, he said they had made this decision because I was "too possessive". I was even more amazed. Leaving her alone in Australia with her lover and her sister was scarcely the act of a possessive parent. I had always done all I could to make sure I was not being possessive - at least in my own eyes.

I did not know what to say. But after he had put down the phone, I decided to write to Karina. I wanted to know if Joe was speaking on her behalf. I told her that as far as I was concerned, she was 17 and grown up. If she wanted to fly free of me, not to be in touch with me, that was her free right. But if she did, I wanted her to know that I loved her very much, that I would always keep a place for her in my heart and that she should never fear returning. The door would always be open. I would always be there for her if she needed me.

About ten days later I phoned home to speak to Katie but Karina's boyfriend again was the first to pick up the phone. He angrily told me I was a "monster". He said he had told me not to try to contact Karina and my letter had made her cry for over two days. This was all so utterly unimaginable. When I left Australia there was no obvious sign that this would happen. I had chatted with Joe and only had friendly contact with him. My only disagreement with them had been when they did not emerge from bed to see me when I came to visit. Not long after this my film crisis deepened due to funders' actions and I had to return to Australia to sort it. This gave me the chance to discover what had happened with Karina and Joe.

I received a wonderful welcome back from my younger daughter Katie and her boyfriend Tree. But the situation was extremely awkward. Both girls and their boyfriends were still living in the family home. I could not easily visit Katie with Joe demanding that I kept well away from the house (I have never since had the chance to speak personally with Karina). A few days later, when I phoned Katie, Joe again took the phone. He told me not to phone the house even to talk to Katie for: "You know very well that every time you phone up, it puts great strain on Karina."

Later that same day I managed to let Katie know of this outrageous demand. She was understandably extremely upset that her sister's boyfriend was presuming to cut her off from me. She was also very upset because she had discovered that Joe also had not passed on a message to Tree and her about a friend who had over-dosed. She was furious with both her sister and Joe. I only know what happened that night by later report. But apparently Jackie was called in to try to sort out matters. The end result was that Jackie helped Karina and Joe move out of that house to another address. I was then told by Jackie that I was not to know of this address.

Thus my eldest daughter followed the precedent set by Jackie. I did not know now of either Jackie's street address or of Karina's. (Although Jackie has since given me a post office box number for herself. ) My ex partner has effectively retained full contact with our daughters. It is only me that has been isolated. I wondered what I had done to deserve this. I felt I must have done something. Of course I had not been a perfect parent - but I loved them all very dearly.

What was this about my path that demanded that I be so burnt? Why this pain? It is now well over a decade since these events - and I have not spoken to Karina since. When I last asked Jackie to see if Karina was willing to talk to me again , Jackie responded that she could not do this since "Karina cries whenever I mention you to her." Katie also told me that Karina did not open the presents I sent her at first - on the basis that presents were not appropriate after what she had said to me.

I discovered too that much damage was also done to the relationship between these once so close sisters - that Karina had not just broken with me but relations had been damaged with her sister and with many of her former friends. I felt these things were at least as serious, and perhaps more serious, than her break with me. I was glad to learn latter from Jackie that Karina now has new friends and is happy. But I live in hope that one day she will speak to me again, that we will be reconciled. It is still hard to write of this gulf between us, of the hurt and pain. I still mourn her. I too cannot think of her still without crying. I still wonder if my gender change is at the root of the division between us. If not, what is it? What have I done? Have I been awful to her? Was it the pain of our family breakdown? Was it - but what is the use of asking these questions? I know that I had good relations with her when we went to New Zealand, I know I loved and valued her and worried over her.

I have worried that Karina might have felt undervalued because in our last years together her sister gained more praise than her by being outstandingly outgoing and hospitable while Karina was much more retiring. But this does not make sense as a cause of division. Jackie and I both did this - and only I am excluded. I know that Karina did need to be private, to create her own space. She was very alike me in her creativity and love for writing. I was more a loner than she was when I was a child. Perhaps otherwise we were too much alike. Perhaps this also meant she needed her own space.

I asked my God, "Where, oh where, is this stripping to end? Why are you taking so much from me? Why are you making me love children that reject me? Was it that I fought too hard to stay with them? Hurt them in so fighting? Was it that I did not trust Your Providence enough?"

We live in a society that presumes gender roles depend on genitals. In such a rigid system I have no place. I did not sleep with a man to create our children. In such a rigid system - what relationship do I have with grandchildren? What relationship do daughters tell sons they have to me?

In other times and places the social system is more open and flexible. In such societies there are places for grandparents, god-mothers, aunts, magical aunts, spinners of good night stories - second mothers, second lovers, - for a wealth of relationships spun out of the depths of the human heart that reflect all the magic of the many kinds of humans that exist.

I think in such a society the children know who you are - and are happy with you if you truly love and care for them. They need no theory. You can tell them they have a second mother - they can accept it and are happy - as I found with our children The trouble only comes when they find the world outside the family is far more judgmental, narrow and rigid.

Women and men do not only create with wombs and seed. This is the least way. We are in our essence a whirling storm of creation, with every particle of our bodies constantly changing, coming and leaving. We create as do the deities, with the womb of our imagination. The work of creation is never done and we also share in God's creating. God's normal posture is on the birthing chair or bed according to the mystic Meister Ekhard.

After this trauma I went in August 1991 to immerse myself in the wild and to seek some healing from wild sacred places with a good friend, Hannah. We travelled through the Barmah Forest on the River Murray that is revered still by Aborigines. This is a great forest of eucalyptus that were standing in flood waters with moss splattered rocks and grey shimmering bark. I made fire Aboriginal style despite the constant rain by using the dry underbark.

From here we went deep into the mulga desert with its weeping slender trees, the stiff salt bush and willowy peppercorn trees to the ancient wind plastered sand dunes of Lake Mungo where once communities of Neandethral and Homo Sapiens humans lived side by side - two races that I believe inter- breed helping to create the Aborigines and us. Here I watched caterpillars taking advantage of the constant winds to roll themselves across the sands. There were eagles, kangaroos - and dreams.

I dreamt that I was with Jackie and another younger but adult person that was probably Katie but could have been Karina. We went to Roger's home in London where my daughter was assigned a first floor front room. I was assigned the back room of Roger's brother Peter. It was in its usual state with pictures stuck on walls and talc upon the floor. Jackie went upstairs to the room she has been assigned.. I am jealous, picturing her in a bedroom with en suite bathroom. But I overcome my jealousy and accepted my room .

I then went up the stairs to find Jackie only to find she has been taken unexpectedly through a new corridor into the house next door to find her room. I set off after her - but could not find her. I then woke up and watched with Hannah a spectacular dawn over the desert.

After this I walked from our camp, through seemingly endless glades - like a park that goes on for ever that enticed me to walk deeper and deeper into it, a trance inducing place that could kill me with my ignorance of the knowledge needed to survive in her. I flet that if I walked too far the desert forest would swallow our camp making it impossible for me to ever find it again.. The plains I crossed turned out not to be of grass but of fine rounded leafed plants, thinly layered on clay pan, in glade after glade - all the product of recent rain. When I found fresh kangaroo paw marks, I tracked them, head down - then was startled to find I had walked into a herd of equally startled kangaroos. I felt strangely at home in this wilderness despite my lack of knowledge. Here were the spirits that I was coming to know.

In my second remembered dream in the bush, I was with my brother Tony on the roof of a double decker London bus taking him to college. The bus then stopped. I then realised that by mistake we hadn't got on the bus that Katie or Karina had told me to take. I fumbled the change, dropping coins on the roof before being helped down. When we reach the college that we seemed to be heading for, Tony leaves, leaving me stranded. He did not need me. I felt helpless. My interpretation of this was that my family was to be other people, not members of my blood family. I was stumbling over the old names but ready to meet new people.

Not long later we entered a range of desert hills bisected by the large Chambers Gorge. Here I saw the heron I had been given by an Aborigine as a totem to help me with my investigative journalism. It is, I think, called a Boobok. It has a body that looks like an owl but conceals in its neck feathers a long folded neck. In flight it is a splendid sight with surprisingly long wings as well as its extending neck. It was fishing in a pool by our camp when I awoke.

After watching the heron for a while, I went for a dawn walk before the day turned hot and discovered nearby a small canyon, a narrow dry valley with smooth rocky walls. As I walked up its narrow course, I noted a circle carved into the rocks. Then, as I turned a corner, I came into a wide circular level sand bed, surrounded on two sides with a cliff and with the other sides stepped in an amphitheatre made up in part by the dry shapes eroded by a former waterfall. It had the magical feel of a sacred place where many rituals had taken place. It was a perfect arena. Then I noted the cliff face alongside me. There were over one hundred carvings in the rocks. There were lines, circles, s shapes and spirals. At first I think this must be primitive drawing - then suddenly with a flood of understanding I saw that they were the symbols of a language.

Later I learnt that these carvings or hieroglyphics were some 23,000 years old and were still read by local Aboriginal Elders. They were the writing of a most ancient race that whites said did not have writing. I found that cultural prejudice had labelled these symbols as simply "primitive drawing" purely because "everyone knows Aborigines do not have writing." They were reportedly over twice as old as most Egyptian and Middle Eastern writing systems.

Such wonders and such dreams helped assuage the pain of separation. Soon after this my film demanded my attention and once more I have to leave Australia, leaving behind me much pain, not just my own pain, but what seeed to be the vivid raw pain of three women that I much loved, Karina, Katie and of Jackie. However much I wanted to remove their pain or loved them, I knew that it was not mine to remove. They had told me they must do it themselves. I could simply hope and pray that they would succeed in working out their pain.

I had no choice but to continue on my path. It seemed I was now being freed of old bonds. Still my trust had to be in my Creatrix. She who was now stripping me from other bonds had been there for me from the beginning. She has shown herself to me from time to time. I have met her with pleasure. She was here for me when I was a child, she was here for me when I was a zealot, a novice, and a seminarian, and now she is there for me in all her strength and terror as a parent creating me, forging me with fire so that I might be what I am meant to be.

This is my story of our family - apart from a little more that I will tell in the next chapter. There are of course other aspects. Jackie has her own song, her own path to follow. Despite the pain of learning how she saw me and how hard she found her path, I remember all the beauty that we shared and what I learnt from her. For the splendours of what we shared I owe her and our children gratitude. Katie and I am still good friends - and perhaps by the time you come to read this book, Karina and I will be together again. I hope this is so.

My children of course also have their own stories. I cannot tell what it was like to have such a parent as myself. That is for them to tell if they so chose. I hope they remember I loved them much, but I know it was not easy for them.

END