Trigger warning: This post deals with issues around suicide and might be triggering for some readers.
On the eve of Australia Day 2012, Cate McGregor was told she was about to be awarded the Order of Australia medal. Only instead of planning her acceptance speech, she was planning on killing herself.
The former Army Lieutenant Colonel, political adviser and cricket writer made the admission to Mia Freedman on the No Filter podcast this week, detailing how a sliding doors moment saved her.
It was just four years ago that the high-profile transgender woman, was in complete turmoil. McGregor had just come out as transgender to her wife of ten years in “the cruellest conversation I’d ever had.”
She couldn’t sleep and had lost 23 kilograms.
“I was dying inside, I was desperate,” she said.
So, having hoarded sleeping pills from various doctors, she walked off Adelaide Oval with a plan.
“I was going back to my hotel to commit suicide.”
“I wasn’t clinging to life. It was relief. I thought, ‘It will be good to end this.'”
Since then, the 59-year old, previously described by many as a “blokey-bloke”, has transitioned from Malcolm to Cate, and become a public spokesperson for transgender issues.
She told Mia Freedman that her first memories of feeling like a woman were present in childhood. At eight, she was caught in a dress by her mother, who made it clear that such behaviour would not be tolerated.
From then, McGregor says she was forced into a “hyper-masculine” life. She was a Royal Australian Air Force group captain, a Rugby and cricket aficionado, a fighter and it was all in an effort to suppress what psychologists had named her “gender dysphoria”.
In 1986, depressed and confused, she investigated transitioning only to be told by her psycholgist; “I don’t transition people like you…you’re going to lose your job. You’re going to lose your family. And you’re going to lose everything.”
Listen to the extraordinary interview here: post continues after audio
It wasn’t until her mother died in 1992, that she realised she could finally transition to a woman.
“I left her funeral and thought to myself ‘you can transition genders now.’ Because I’d been so deeply terrified about breaking her heart. And destroying her illusions about this golden haired son,” she says.
As the world’s most senior transgender military officer, it’s an extraordinary story of transition.
“I want everyone in Australia to understand I’m a human being. And I’d like to proceed from that assumption first. Because if you accept that, certain things flow. They’re detestation of us [trans people] is so deep that they dehumanize us, as do the religious zealots. They haven’t got the common decency to treat us as human beings – and I think that’s what is missing in this discussion.”
Cate McGregor is determined to continue shining a light on humanity for trans gendered people.
“There is an inexorable tide happening her,” she said.
“The fact that I’m here is a victory in it’s own right.”
Listen to the full interview, here:
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Top Comments
Having seen Cate's interview on Australian Story I really loved this podcast episode, especially her insights into how women act around men highlighted by her quote that women "shed their authority". It's fascinating to hear women's place in society viewed by someone who has been living as both genders.
I'd love to know what men discuss about women when they're not around to hear it. I wonder if Cate was ever part of such conversations and what she thinks about that now she's feeling more female.
Thanks, and great work, Mia!
Not knowing much about transgender transition, I'm interested to know - are there transgender women (formerly men) out there who don't wear makeup and do the "obsessed with uber-feminine dress and high heels" thing? Most women of Cate's age that I know aren't in full makeup all day, all the time. We haven't seen Cate dressed in trousers - is that because the "feminine look" is harder to achieve in trousers? It worries me a bit that feminists go to such great lengths to not body-shame, not insist on "feminine ideals", yet we have a scenario where men who transition into being women feel they can't fall short of the stereotype, relax, and look like normal, ordinary women who dwell at the "less overtly feminine" end of the spectrum. Let's face it, most middle-aged women don't have ultra-femininie looks. is it a feminist issue if we're allowing a shallow girlie fashion schtick to become the norm for transitioned women?
Maybe it's a reaction to not being able to be ultra feminine before, like when you're dieting and you break your diet, you don't break your diet to eat an apple, you binge on crap food right? Now that they can dress as women all the time, they want to enjoy it and be as girly as possible. Also, she doesn't look heavily made up or really girlishly dressed to me and you don't know how she dresses in her down time.