A couple of weeks ago I received an email from a school student in Sydney, Australia, seeking information on the experience of trans and gender fluid people in the 80s. I have to say I had very few resources to offer her on the subject; my memory is that trans issues weren’t particularly high on the queer political agenda at that time.

Certainly there was no ‘T’ in our community acronym: indeed, such were the narrow parameters of what constituted our ‘community’ that we didn’t need an acronym. We were, by and large, ‘the gay community’ (for example, it wasn’t until the closing years of the 80s that that major Sydney institution the Gay Mardi Gras became the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.)

I’m happy to stand corrected on my perception of trans issues in the 80s. Perhaps my ignorance is merely a reflection of my lack of contact with trans people during that decade.

As it happens, a week after receiving the request from the Sydney school student, Kenton Penley Miller re-published the following true story online. I asked him if I could publish it here too, partly because I do want to include more trans issues on this blog but also because Kenton himself acknowledges in his prologue that language and attitudes have changed since 1986.

I am very grateful for his consent to publish this piece, which I’m re-producing complete with his recently added prologue:

I’ve had a few requests for this article from the ’80s… I finally found the manuscript that I originally typed up (on my old Brother electric typewriter). It’s not only dated because of that – and the liquid paper deletions – but the language, attitudes and writing style that I had at the time. Modern folk will find the confusion between gay and trans and gender diverse mystifying… I’ve decided to leave it intact as it was published at the time, right down to my hideous turn of phrase at times. Mostly because it’s the best way to do justice to Robin and her story. It’s how she saw the world at that time. Now, I hope, life would treat her better…

THE LIFE AND LOVES OF A TRANSSEXUAL BANK ROBBER
(Non-fiction by Kenton Penley)

Years ago I lived in a monogamous, stone cottage renovating relationship with a man who convinced me it was best to remain closeted. My lover’s justification for not coming out, apart from the fact that we lived just out of a small country town, was that to admit homosexuality was to give up your credibility and power in this world. He most often expressed this by saying: “You can’t change the jail system when you’re a prisoner”.