A brief transgender history of Northern Ireland
Emotional support for transgendered people was unheard of until 1960 in the United States which brought the formation, by Virginia Prince and others, of the organisation Freedom of Personal Expression (FPE) which later became the Society of the Second Self (Tri-ess).
Six years later came the creation of the Beaumont Society in the United Kingdom, set up in London by an Irish cross-dresser named Alga among others. This support organisation spanned the British Isles with a network of regional and area organisers and marked the first attempt this side of the Atlantic to end the isolation and trauma of anyone not comfortable with their birth gender.
Named after a colourful French cross-dresser the Chevalier D’Eon de Beaumont who had scandalised London society a couple of hundred years before by regularly presenting as a female in public, the Beaumont Society’s Irish Regional Organiser was an Englishman living in Ballymoney known as Daphne.
Throughout the 1970s and 80s Daphne travelled the length and breadth of Ireland in male garb meeting transvestites and transsexuals, similarly attired, in hotel lounges for a chat about their gender-related problems over a cup of tea. Anyone living in Ireland contacting the Beaumont Society via an anonymous mail box in London was referred to Daphne.
At that time there was very little tangible peer support and virtually no information available for anyone seeking help. Occasional meetings took place in a private house in North Down and later the Gay support group Cara-Friend made available a room for a meeting once a month in its Belfast headquarters.
It was in January 1988 that Linda Marshall first attended this latter meeting, later becoming Group Coordinator of the Belfast TV/TS Group and in 1991 first President of the Belfast Butterfly Club, Northern Ireland’s premier transgender support charity, a position she held until her retirement in 2018.
Throughout the 1990s the Butterfly Club thrived, with attendances at its twice monthly meetings in the mid twenties. Towards the end of the decade club members were venturing out into wider Northern Ireland society, giving Ulster its first real look at birth males presenting as females. People who for years had hidden away in the security of a sub-culture were taking tentative steps into mainstream society, like the pioneers from the Gay community had done years before.
With the new millennium the momentum for transgender emancipation grew and the Belfast Butterfly Club published its visionary strategic plan “Transgender 2001”, obtained
grant aid from the National Lottery and a variety of English charitable trusts and established its own permanent headquarters in Lisburn in a converted garage.
A ground-breaking conference “Transgender Symmetry” was held in 2007 with celebrity Richard O’Brien as headline speaker and participation from a variety of statutory agencies.
In more recent times there has been a significant growth in the number and diversity of transgender support bodies operating in both Belfast and Londonderry, each with their own specialisms such as SAIL catering for the families of transgendered people and GenderJam aimed at transgender youth. Other small groups cater for transsexuals wishing to transition only or for birth females who identify as male.
The Belfast Butterfly Club draws its membership from across the whole of Northern Ireland and beyond and remains the only organisation which aims to provide peer support for the entire transgender spectrum aged over eighteen. Meetings of its members take place every week in North Belfast and monthly open meetings are still held in the Cara-Friend premises in the city centre. All adults are welcome. You can find out more from the website belfastbutterflyclub.com or by ringing the club’s helpline 07704799352.
Sam Mary Ann
by Robert Cochrane
(The story of an actual person in North Antrim in the 1940s from the Coleraine Chronicle 12 February 2000)
Sam was big hats
and gaudy scarves
long billowing skirts
fox furs,
heavy coats and cardigans.
A fashion refugee of the 1940s
In his teens
the farmer's daughter
dressed him for fun
in her things
he refused to be anything else.
When laughter
and cold reason failed
he was not put away
in country eyes
he did no harm
so was let be.
They added
an old term to his name
from then on he became
"Sam Mary Ann".
The war years
meant dances in local halls,
powder caked
betraying stubble shadows,
she'd retouch that curious face
observing huskily in failed feminine tones.
There's lots of Yankees here tonight!
Men danced her for fun,
grinning past those shoulders
to their pals.
One let his hands
wander towards the truth
a punch sprawled him
down the chair-edged wall.
In the chemist's
She'd request
as if in passing
"Some razor blades
for my next door neighbour."
Male hands holding gloves,
thick ankles squeezed into
fine shoes,
her hat at a jaunty angle
and the faithful old bicycle
well-leant outside.
When called to give evidence
she dressed in her finest.
The unwarned judge
angrily assumed contempt
before tact and explanation
intervened.
In hospital
she raised hell
in the men's ward.
They had to understand.
She was Miss McCaw!
The eventual compromise
A room of her own.
We used to wolf whistle
and shout "Hi ya Sam!"
kissing the windows
of our school bus.
She'd shake her fist
unladyfully and glower.
Some risked
bravado in the street
but Sam gave chase
and if successful
dispersed her callers
with bruised ears.
In town
she caused no stir
and stirred no causes
Everyone said hello
as they do in Ireland
and Sam did the same
on her way to shop
or chat and tea
with some of her old lady
friends.
She never met one like herself,
nor spoke of the situation
that would have betrayed
her act of years
in glad rags with handbags
passed along or bought
from jumble sales.
Yet in death
they dressed her in
a black suit and a tie
and combed back her hair.
A male discretion of embalmer's
rouge
the sole concession
of a lifetime spent
in woman's ways,
or a perception of them.
She was betrayed,
but only briefly.
A headstone to "S. McCaw"
restored her sense
of mystery.
