|
 |
"I wasn't born the way I'd hoped to be born. So I'm just rectifying that."
|
 |
Usenet comments
soc.support.transgendered
From: anon-19613@anon.twwells.com (Anna)
Subject: Prostitute stars
Date: 06 Jan 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <770fva$bop$1@twwells.com>
Newsgroups: soc.support.transgendered
danielleww@my-dejanews.com (danielleww) posted:
> Has anyone just seen Paddington Green? I'm not advocating
> prostitution or anything, but wow! That line!:
> "Its me who's had the last laugh really because it's those bullies
> who are now the men who pay me for sex."
>
> You know that reunion.................
Hmmm... Where to start... The ones who bullied me would now be
hideously old (we age wonderfully slowly, at a guess I can pass for
early to mid 30s still, thankyou), even I were into men. Having sex
with them would give them quite undeserved pleasure...
OK, for folks not in the UK, the BBC is currently running a documentary
series showing the real lives of some selected people who live or work
in a small area of inner London, called Paddington Green, which title
they have also given the series. This week, on Monday and Tuesday at
21.30, immediately after the main evening news on the prime channel, one
of the four people featured was a 28 year old post-op M2F called Jackie
McAuliffe (her name was in the listings magazines and there was no sign
that she wished for any anonymity) who earns her living as a prostitute,
mainly plying a clearly identifiable street corner locally, but also
entertaining clients at her bed-sitter.
Hopefully there will be more on her, and we will learn more aspects of
her character and her story. However, I have to say that when I first
saw and heard her I could not believe that this was the girl mentioned
in the listings magazines. She is gorgeous, has an astounding voice,
and seems very bright. It seems a wicked waste that she should be
working as a hooker, and we have not yet heard exactly why she started.
There was no sign of drugs, excepting the need to have many stiff drinks
before she starts work (around 20.30-04.00) in the evening - that's not
going to do her liver any good. We have learned that she was a foster
kid in a well-off family (clearly, from the voice, in the North of
England), and that she played the piano well back then - we have seen
her making the staff of a music store fall in love with her (and offer
her a job) as she bought sheets of Handel's music, and then hire a
rehearsal room at a piano showroom to play it. We have learned that she
had SRS 2 years ago (which would make it at the same age as me, and she
lives only a couple of miles from where I did; it could have been
me...), and that she has had some facial surgery, and breast implants
(modest ones); she vaguely talks of some further plastic surgery to her
figure. She's 6' tall, slim, with great legs, as she freely states.
We've seem her shopping for work clothes, and seen her dealing with her
large number of outstanding fines for working the street. She tells us
that the courts are quite cool about her being TS (as she descibes
herself still) and don't care about it, but she's clearly not prepared
to go to prison, where she feels things would be very different. That
would happen if she failed to pay her fines - that's a different offence
to prostitution itself, which is no longer an imprisonable offence here.
I think she's making a thing about having to work the streets in order
to pay off her fines (which add up to about £500) for the cameras, since
she would pay them off with a cheque if prison threatened. She'd make a
good businesswoman of any sort. The series is shot by a woman director,
and Jackie is obviously on excellent terms with her, being the only
subject who talks to her, by name, on camera. But then Jackie is the
only subject seen leaping in and out of bed, being filmed in a small
bed-sitter...
Jackie explains that there are other TSs who are no fortunate to look so
much like women, but made the excellent point that they feel exactly the
same as she does.
I guess that this has to be a positive portrayal of TSism, especially if
she is seen quiting the streets.
Jackie says that she was bullied and ostracised as a kid and teen, but I
doubt if the same people are crawling the streets of London. My guess
is that, like me, Jackie is probably the only one of her school year to
have made it to the "big smoke".
I imagine that the series was completed many weeks before the first
episode was aired, so I hope that Jackie is not still working the
streets, especially not the same, identified street corner. Otherwise
the immense publicity she is receiving for her trade might have
unforseen consequences. I do so wish her well. If anyone knows her,
please email me...
Anna
From: anon-19613@anon.twwells.com (Anna)
Subject: Re: Prostitute stars in Paddington Green
Date: 14 Jan 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <77kcdu$eem$1@twwells.com>
Newsgroups: soc.support.transgendered
[...]
Two further episodes of the docu-soap have now aired and we have learned
more about Jackie. Also I have a rather clear voice sample of her is
anyone would like me to put it on the Web. I find her voice quite
astonishing.
We've seen her at work on the street, wired for sound (singing 'My
favorite things' from Sound of Music to keep up her spirits while
"selling her body"), chatting up the police, who don't always arrest
her, and being firm with punters - she won't get in a car with more than
one man. We now know all her rates.
The film-makers asked her about her first experience of sex and she
revealing that it was with quite a nice guy who she was with for 3
months, but she was terribly disappointed by sex. She asked herself if
that was all there was to it. Did all women feel that way; that it was
nothing special? We haven't learned if she has experienced any
different since, and still don't know for certain why she went on the
game, except that she financed her surgeries with a bank loan and is
paying it off. It's doubtful that she was on the game prior to surgery
because she has related that she knew none of the phrases for particular
"services" when she had her first punter.
The vague talk of further surgery very rapidly turned into firm plans
for a nose and chin job, so rapidly that I fear that being filmed might
be pushing her to things. However, she perfectly lucidly explained that
she just doesn't like what she looks like, and that, just as with her
SRS and her breasts, she was doing it for herself and for no one else.
It would help her in her work, she thought, but that was not why she was
going to have it done. Most women, she asserted, given the money, would
be round to a cosmetic surgeons like a shot to have something changed,
just for themselves. She visited a private (Harley Street, no less, the
street of all the "top" medics) surgeon, who took some Polaroids and
sketched some possible changes, and gave her a B&W photocopy. He
described these as "gilding the lily", a phrase which she seemed not to
know and he explained it as "making an already very beautiful young lady
look only just a little better". She didn't take the hint that she was
in no need of the surgery but instead retorted, charmingly, that he
could gild her as much as he wished! It was sad that in filling up the
patient's form she was heard say that she had no next of kin, however
she did have a friend to take the surgeon's sketches round to for a bit
of reinforcement - a nice girl in a hair salon. Jackie put down a
deposit for the surgery so that it has the effect of giving her an
incentive to work. The voice-over then continually made play of the
them that she was working harder and longer to pay for her surgery. One
night she earned pounds 600, but was also arrested by "the vice". She
makes the point that few people can earn an average of pounds 150 a day.
One hopes that the tax authorities don't tune in on her - one
prostitution campaigner was neutralised for several years when the tax
people prosecuted on the basis of her own revelations.
There are two more episodes next week.
Anna
From: "danielleww"
Subject: Re: Prostitute stars in Paddington Green
Date: 16 Jan 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <369ff61d.0@newsread3.dircon.co.uk>
Newsgroups: soc.support.transgendered
There was an article in the Sunday Mail very recently, about Jackie. I have
quoted some text from it in response to some of your points/ questions. I
hope it is of interest......
Quote:
"Only a few of the punters who were paying for sex with me knew I was a
transsexual. A lot of them were the same type of men who used to bully me
when I was Jason. I felt a strange sort of fulfilment and power over them. I
was in charge."
Quote:
Jackie is not in the least embarrassed by what she is or what she was. When
the BBC began filming people who live and work in Paddington, for what is to
be its most ambitious fly-on-the-wall series so far, she demanded to be one
of them.
It mentioned in the article how, fortunately for Jackie, her voice never
broke.
Quote:
The long process of turning from Jason to Jackie began, culminating in a
genital sex change operation, done on the NHS, in November
1995.............The operation though, left Jackie incomplete as a woman.
Any more surgery she would have to pay for herself. "I was really
flat-chested. I'd started prostituting already, in a bid to raise cash, but
always with a plan - to pay for the full transformation. It was not nice
work, I've never liked it, but there was no other way to pay for a roof over
my head and save for the breast operation."
[When she says "prostituting already" it's not totally clear if she meant
before the programme or before her operation.]
Quote:
Now Jackie has changed her life again. Last November, with the BBC series
half-recorded, she gave up prostitution, and as the series unravels, viewers
will see her as she copes with the new set of problems that this entails.
She is now waiting to see if the success of the series will throw up new
opportunities for her.
"Prostitution was always a trap I planned to get out of. The series helped
me do it.............. Ninety per cent of transsexuals don't make it in
life, but I'm going to, and I think I already have."
------------------------------------------------------
end of quotes
------------------------------------------------------
What she has also given up is stealth. I wonder if she worries about how
that will affect her. Coming out to people she meets is one thing, but to
the whole nation? Obviously she must think that the benefits will outweigh
any costs. I'm sure a lot of people will have respect for her, but she may
get a lot of hassle from ignorant youths and such. It also might make
finding a partner more difficult, if that is what she wants. It will be
interesting to see what happens. There are supposed to be 32 episodes.
DanielleWW
rec.arts.tv.uk.coronation-st
For those like myself who have never seen a single episode of what
apparently is the world's longest running soap, this show introduced a transsexual
character called Hayley (played by Julie Hesmondhalgh), about the same
time as Jackie went on air. Naturally, comparisons followed...
From: no@spam.please (annie)
Subject: Re: 10 Wishes for CS in 1999
Date: 08 Jan 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <3695916b.62860361@news.freeserve.net>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv.uk.coronation-st
[...]
>(Jackie from Paddington Green)...
>She is going to to be the most well known transexual in the country in
>the space of a few weeks. Probably the only transexual that many
>people have ever seen on TV. I wonder if she has any idea of what will
>happpen or how much it might change her life. She's going to be public
>property and recognised everywhere.
I really didn't want to comment on this too much....but I will.
She has, admittedly, got guts. But no matter how you look at it her
chosen profession doesn't do her, or TSs in general any good at all,
not that she's trying to of course. I just feel that she is perhaps
likely to reinforce the stereotype in some people's minds that TS's
are predominatly sex-mad or immoral.
Wise, enlightened people will, of course not make this assumption, but
is that the audience docusoaps are aimed at? Hayley's done a lot to
show the other side of the coin of course.
It has to be said......The "Let's go shopping!!" thing made me cringe.
They did this with Ros too, and, frankly, they WOULDN'T do this with a
genetic female. Wandering about trying on frocks? Oh dear,
dear,dear....
If she wants to get into showbiz, she's made a very wise choice indeed
to lay her life open like that. I'd think for anyone in a docusoap,
the showbiz attraction is bound to be a pull.
>
>( This is on at 9.30 on BBC1 if troll/fool largebaldhead is reading.
>Just so he can avoid it, or preferably watch it and learn something.
>She was great!! )
I did find her likable, and capable, I thought, of a great deal more
than the rather tasteless life she has at present. I hope that this
DOES lead to an improvement in her circumstances.
From: George Middleton
Subject: Re: New character op in TA
Date: 13 Jun 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <5k5KNOAzx3Y3Eww2@leton.demon.co.uk>
Newsgroups: uk.media.radio.archers
Rosie Mitchell wrote:
>Julie [Hesmondhalgh] is a very
>nice person and has created a very warm, likeable and sympathetic
>character who has undoubtedly done much for the cause, but who is not
>terribly convincing as a transsexual person - her awkward movements are
>not the awkwardness of someone brought up as a man trying to be
>feminine, her voice is neither a trained male voice nor an unbroken
>boy's voice but a rich naturally-female voice, and so on.
The girl in the FOTWD Paddington Green who used to be thought a boy
would have been *perfect* in the role. She could easily have been taught
to act well enough for a soap.
I suppose Paddington Green came too late (but it has not stayed too
long) [20p]
--
George
From: Gigi
Subject: Re: 10 Wishes for CS in 1999
Date: 10 Jan 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <369852C7.525061AA@microtec.net>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv.uk.coronation-st
> Did anyone see Paddington Green, the new BBC docu-soap? One of the
> people they are following is a transexual called Jackie Wow, she was
> quite an eyeopener. Talk about 'Confidence R Us'!! was imagining her
> and Roy! I wonder what she could do for his confidence!!! :-) I don't
> think mellowing would be quite the effect. Laidback she isn't!
>
> She is going to be pretty famous and very quickly I should think. Look
> what The Cruise did for for that Jane woman.. Mind you, Jackie works
> as a prostitute , not a singer.
>
I would like to see a picture of Jackie Wow. If possible, please add one
to your updates.
Like Martin, I've worked in a hospital for over twenty years, and I've
dealt with many transsexuals. Unfortunately, I've also realised that you
can spot them from 100 yards, before you've even spoken. I have never been
fooled. Had Haley's role been played by a true transsexual, the outcry
would have been deafening. But since she is played by a woman, the
coupling is accepted, even lauded.
I'm from the Sixties; as long as you love someone, somehow, and all
partners are agreeable, then all is well.
But don't tell me that you are all open-minded and breaking open new
frontiers, when a transsexual male is played by a woman.
All this said, I love Roy&Haley and hope that they can get married,
somehow, someday.
gigi
