MDJ's own transcription of interview on ABC radio 6WF 720 AM (Perth-only) with Eoin Cameron, live from landline ca. 7.15am Tuesday 20 July 2004 (same day as appearing on the George Negus Tonight ABC television programme).

Length of the actual interview not including music: 9 minutes.

EOIN CAMERON: In a couple of minutes we're going to be talking to Margaret Jones who's going to appear on the George Negus Tonight show tonight. Margaret was born a male but always felt female [no I didn't !!] and talks pretty frankly about that apparently on the Negus programme. We'll get a sneak preview in just a few minutes from now this morning. MUSIC: a complete song by Troy Casadaly (sp?)

EOIN: That's Troy Casadaly (sp?) on 720 Perth and "Riverboy." It's fourteen past seven. Many of us have walked into a situation where we've felt totally out of place, and Margaret Jones knows that feeling only too well. Margaret was born male but always felt female and in her late thirties decided to make a life-changing decision. Margaret's story will be featured on George Negus tonight and Margaret joins us with a preview now. Margaret, good morning to you.

MARGARET JONES: Hi Eoin, how are you?

EOIN: I'm well thank you. Thanks very much for talking to us. How early in your life did you comprehend that something didn't feel quite right for you.

MARGARET: I think I was about five years old, and I thought "gee, I'm supposed to be a boy, aren't I?" and I felt myself that I looked very female at that age, and that really disturbed me a lot, I was very upset about that.

E: Did you have fairly feminine features, because there are lots of feminine-looking boys, aren't there?

M: Well that's true, and that's a very interesting point because your features that you appear to have visually or as a personality, that's only one aspect and what's more important is what you think of yourself, you know.

E: Yep.

M: Um, and actually I might just correct something. In your intro you've said that I always felt female. Well, actually, that's the point, I didn't. Um, I'm an androgyne, I'm not a transsexual. I don't feel consistently female.

E: Right.

M: I vary from time to time, moment to moment sometimes. I sometimes really think of myself as a women, and sometimes I really think of myself as a man but not very often. But most of the time I really think of myself as an androgyne, which is some sort of mixture.

E: So this is not anything that would go through a monthly cycle or anything like that. I could be within a moment to moment situation.

M: Indeed that's true, it can happen like that.

E: How did that affect your family life when you were growing up?

M: Well, I think really it made me rather introverted and ... I was a very quiet kid, and quite a loner. Sometimes felt lonely but most of the time I just was alone, if you know what I mean.

E: Yep.

M: So I spent a lot of time by myself, wandering around the national park, on my bicycle, um, you know, going down to the creek, and walking along the creek, and swimming in the creek and just spending time on my own.

E: Do you remember agonising much over it especially when you got to, say, your teenage years which are, let's face, bad enough at the best of times, without all the other issues you had going on.

M: Yes. Well, that was very interesting to me because, um, by the time I got to puberty I was starting to accept my femaleness, to the extent that I am a bit female,...

E: Yep.

M: ...and in terms of identity, of how I really saw myself as a personality,...

E: And you've got a willie happening there.

M: Yes, and, and um, that's right, and then I started to, my body masculinised quite a lot..

E: Yep.

M: And that was very distressing, I really got, um, that was distressing. So it was the other way around by that stage.

E: From being a little boy with some feminine features, when you went through puberty did you physically start changing to look much more masculine?

M: Yeah, yeah. I looked like the average sort of boy I suppose, but perhaps a little bit feminine.

E: Do you have days when you just feel totally feminine, the entire day?

M: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yes it's, it's probably like being a transsexual on a part-time basis, I would say.

E: Does it get confusing for you, do you sometimes get feed-up with it?

M: Yeah, it's a bit like "Oh, why does this have to happen to me?" you know.

E: "Woe is me?"

M: Yeah, but I've gotten used to it and, part of the solution for me was trying to, well, I always wanted to be "one", you know, like there's there's a tremendous desire to be a single sort of personality, and some years ago, maybe about five years ago, I stopped trying to do that. Now I'm very happy to be whatever I am at the time, which does vary.

E: Margaret, did you ever have anyone say to you "I think you need some psychiatric help?"

M: Only once, and not quite in those terms. I went to my GP, I think it was in 1999, and I said "OK," and I knew him for several years by this stage, and I said "OK, I'd like to try some female hormones thanks," and he reached over to the shelf and pulled off some samples that he'd been given and said "OK, there you go. Now I think you should go and see a psychiatrist, at least once, just to check things out." So I did that, but I think he just wanted to cover himself.

E: Yeah, yeah. How did you go with the psychiatrist?

M: Well, he was very interesting. He was an older guy, and he very quickly, in one session, decided that I was a "normal male, comma, transvestite."

E: Right.

M: And I think he was completely wrong.

E: Were you a little bit insulted by, you know, that diagnosis so quickly.

M: No, I was actually quite elated because I thought, well this guy doesn't know what he's talking about, and I felt, and I knew my doctor was still going to allow me to have the hormones, so actually, I was quite elated about that.

E: So what changed when you started to get towards your late thirties?

M: I just couldn't bear it any more. I just could not bear it. I was, it was like "break or break through."

E: And this was the stage when you went to the doctor for the hormones.

M: Yeah, I was about thirty-eight.

E: OK. How did that affect your attitude to life once you started taking the hormones? Was it an immediate reaction?

M: Oh, I think psychologically I was over the moon, and I was on a high for several years, before it sort of balanced out a bit. But in terms of the hormones themselves directly changing my personality, I don't think so.

E: And physiologically, how did they change you?

M: Well, my breasts grew more than double their size, some minor bit of fat redistribution, my hair on my scalp got a lot better. And my beard got a lot less....which was very good.

E: Well, I imagine it probably would be. Would you think that you identify mostly with the female side?

M: No, I mostly identify with the androgyne.

E: Right. So,..

M: But more female than male, when that happens.

E: Right, and, and does it upset you at all, if you have days where you're feeling more masculine?

M: No, no. It's something that I make sure that I really enjoy whatever I am.

E: Bearing in mind this is twenty minutes past seven in the morning and we have a family audience. Is all the tackle still intact?

M: Oh yes.

E: And, and you won't be changing anything about that?

M: That's true.

E: So that, that would...Do you know any other people who identify as an androgyne in much the same way that you do?

M: Ah, yeah, roughly speaking, yeah.

E: And is there any sort of support groups or do you get together at all or do you feel you're quite OK coping on your own?

M: Well, I.., at the moment I'm Convenor of TransWest: The Transgender Association of Western Australia. I will be for another month or so and then I'm going to pull back from that. I want to pursue my career in composing music and teaching and stuff. But, we have this support group and we have a lot of transsexuals and quite a few transgender people like myself, who are not really transsexuals but are not cross-dressers.

E: I believe you're a musician by trade, as you've just mentioned, do you find that is a particular outlet for your creativity?

M: Absolutely. Yes, and my issues with gender run right through my music from earliest times.

E: And what sort of clothes do you wear each day?

M: Only women's clothes, I can't bear wearing men's clothes, can't bear it.

E: Right. And how does that, um, bit of another delicate question here, there are so many delicate questions to ask but, how do you get on when you're out somewhere, perhaps you're out performing and there's a call of nature. What do you do then?

M: Go to the ladies.

E: Alright.

M: I might tell you I was at TAFE doing a course two or three years ago, and almost all the people in the course were female. And I went to the guy's loo, and they saw this, and the ladies there, the other girls, were really insistent that I must not do that, they said "it does not look right." I had to go to the ladies loo.

E: I suppose it could look a bit odd. How did you enjoy shooting with the Negus people?

M: Oh, that was a lot of fun. Yeah, well they came and...and they filmed me five times playing a little piano piece I wrote when I was about sixteen, which I was very pleased about and actually I'm just publishing that today, it's being published for the first time. And we had a lot of talks about a lot of things. Unfortunately, they left off the part where I said I'd one day like to have kids and have a wife, so I have to put a plug in there for myself about that.

E: How could you do that?

M: Well, I'm legally male so I would have no trouble marrying at the moment.

E: Right.

M: I'm very fortunate in that sense 'cause I'd like to marry a woman and I'm legally male, so that's not a problem for me in particular.

E: So with the hormone treatment that you have would you still be capable of doing the job?

M: Now that's an interesting point Eoin, because it does have a negative effect on all that.

E: Right.

M: It's a little bit more difficult, yeah.

E: But you still would be producing sperm, I presume.

M: I am at the moment because I vary my hormones.

E: Oh, OK.

M: I can decide to take them or not take them and that makes a difference.

E: So, theoretically there could be a pregnancy even if there had to be some kind of medical procedure intervention along the way.

M: Yeah, that's another possibility as well.

E: Margaret, good talking to you this morning. I'm looking forward to seeing that programme tonight and thank you very much for your time.

M: Great, thanks a lot.

E: Bye bye. Margaret Jones, who is featuring on George Negus Tonight, 6.30pm on ABC TV. It's twenty-three past seven.

END OF INTERVIEW

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