‘If I connect with someone on a mental level, the sex doesn’t really matter’
Gender was not the only identity that Louise Hannon left behind in the North, writes Donal Lynch
‘During the week she lived as a man and at weekends she would dress as a woman’
IN the lobby of a busy Dublin hotel, Louise Hannon is a flourish of elegant colour, amid the lunchtime rush of men in suits. She hardly attracts a second glance — which may be just how she likes it, but this unassuming woman is the Rosa Parks of the transgender movement in Ireland.
In 2011, supported by the Equality Authority, she won a case against her former employer, First Direct Logistics, for discrimination on gender and disability grounds. She was awarded €35,422, but more importantly she waived the usual right to anonymity so that she would raise the profile of the transgender cause in this country.
The case is being featured in a riveting new TG4 series about notable miscarriages of justice, which will be broadcast this Wednesday.
Louise’s experience gave momentum to the Gender Recognition Bill of 2013 and catalysed what Hannon calls “a kind of revolution” here. From discussions about celebs like Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner to the issue of gender neutral bathrooms in colleges here, transgender issues have never been so visible.
“Well, they are in the South,” Hannon qualifies, “but not where I come from. The North is still very transphobic.”
Gender was not the only identity that Hannon left behind, religion too fell by the wayside in adult life. She grew up on a farm in Antrim, which was part of a staunchly Presbyterian community. Her mother was emotionally distant, “highly strung”, “always giving out” and Hannon says that “although she loved my father, she was not in love with him”.
She has no recollection of being held or hugged by her mother as a child, and tells me it has been “a lifetime’s work” to come to terms with that.
As a child she was also sexually abused between the ages of seven and nine by an employee of her father — the man who committed that crime is now dead and was never prosecuted.
She was an “arty” youngster and her friends were all girls; male bonding seemed like an alien thing. She recounts an incident when she was about seven when her transgender identity began to express itself.
“My mother used to dress in suspender belts and stockings. She was a girl of the forties. I loved those clothes. I tried them on and she walked into the room. She gave out buckets and I never did that again.”
As a teenager she already knew she was bisexual. She dated girls but “it felt claustrophobic, as though I were being smothered. I am in a relationship with a woman now and it’s great, but that’s because I have my own identity now”.
She wanted to be a fashion designer, but when her father became ill, she ran the family farm for a few years.
She continued to cross dress but explains, “it was not a sexual thing at all. It was as though a sort of calmness and peace came over me. It was that feeling of being whole and comfortable that I needed”.
At 25 she got married “because everyone else was doing it”. The marriage lasted two decades and she had two sons with her former wife.
“I was a husband and a dad but it was a difficult time for me; I did not speak to anyone about my issues.”
Unbeknown to her wife, Hannon had started dressing in the wife’s clothes, but it was the arrival of a Canadian counsellor in her life that would finally end the marriage.
“At that point, you have to understand, I was suicidal. (The counsellor) said to me right away, ‘it’s possible that you are transsexual’. I felt like a complete and utter pervert, that this was completely wrong. I had grown up with a lot of homophobia and transphobia and I had probably internalised that.”
In the late 1990s she went for therapy in Belfast, where she attempted to ascertain if her transgender issues “were a result of the sexual abuse I suffered as a child or if the abuse was a side issue. The conclusion we came to was that the abuse was a side issue”.
She entered into a relationship with a woman and they remained together for five years. During this time she had to come to terms with the loss of her family: “I have two boys, they are OK with me being transgender but they have an issue with the way the marriage broke down.”
She arrived in Dublin on July 12, 2000, and began living in Clontarf with her new girlfriend.
During the week she lived as a man and at the weekends she would dress as a woman and go out.
After many discussions with doctors, she was eventually prescribed hormones and these altered not just her physique but also her mentality and her voice.
She had “the minimum of surgery necessary — I didn’t want to look like some Barbie doll”.
She also began seeing a clinical psychologist, changed her name by deed poll and announced in her place of work that she would be arriving into the office on a certain date dressed as a woman.
There followed a period when she was allowed to dress as a woman in the office, but was asked to assume a male identity when meeting clients. Eventually she decided she had no alternative but to leave.
“I thought long and hard about taking my case to the Equality Tribunal,” she explains. “When I was living as a man, I had a great inability to say no to people. Now as Louise, I am more assertive.” The tribunal found that requesting Hannon to switch between male and female roles was discriminatory. In a statement, First Direct said it regretted not providing her with the necessary support.
Transgender people still face a tough road — roughly half of teens who identify as transgender have attempted suicide at least once — but Louise sees a lot of hope in the recent discussions around transgender issues in Ireland.
She says the controversy around how young someone should be allowed to transition here is overstated. “What people forget is there is a difference between legal recognition and medical transition.
“Young people under 16 in Ireland want legal recognition so that their path through their second level and third level is smooth. So, for instance, their grant applications are processed in the correct gender. Medical transition is a separate issue.”
She is in a relationship with a woman now. “If I connect with someone on a mental level, physically, the sex doesn’t really matter,” she explains. “I’m with a girl now whom I love a lot, we have a great connection.”
Does she have any regrets? “I wish I was able to have transitioned earlier in life, definitely,” she begins.
“But the great thing about everything that happened was that you really do stop caring about what people think of you. I don’t care any more. And that’s a great freedom.” The series ‘Finne’ (Witness) tells the story of Louise Hannon this Wednesday on TG4 at 9.30pm.