“I never set out to make history – I simply opened my door”
BY MARTINE ROSE, IMAGES PROVIDED
Oh, if only I could wear a pretty dress like that.
That was my thought, aged about seven, at a birthday party of one of the neighbourhood kids. I was feeling intensely jealous of all the young girls looked so lovely in their pretty party frocks, but I, along with the other boys, were all wearing pretty much the same boring boys’ clothes. It seemed so unfair. A girl could really dress up in such a variety of beautiful clothes, especially on special occasions, but I had so little choice in what I could wear. A girl could have lovely long flowing hair if she wanted but I had to keep mine short. And when we grow up it looked like there was a far greater choice of what a girl could do with make-up and so on to make herself look even more beautiful. If only I had been born a girl!
From that day, the wish that I had been born female has never left me.
Those are the opening words of my autobiography. Throughout my childhood and early adult life that wish stayed with me, but I never expressed it – somehow I instinctively felt it was something to keep secret, something wrong that I would be condemned for if anyone found out. But the desire to dress in women’s clothes was so strong that I did so anyway, in secret, whenever I had the chance.
I thought I was the only boy in the world who felt this way. It wasn’t until adulthood that I began to discover there were others like me, and not until my late 30s that I started to meet them. Very slowly, over many years, I came to terms with my feelings and realised there was nothing wrong with them at all. I began to enjoy cross-dressing without guilt or shame.
In 1979, aged 40 and looking for a new direction, I decided to set up a house in Sheffield that would be a safe haven for other “cross-dressers” – the accepted term in those days. I wanted to offer the kind of help and support I would have longed for when I was struggling alone. Others were doing something, notably the Beaumont Society, but nothing like the comprehensive, welcoming place I hoped to create.
It became more than I could ever have imagined. People came from all over the country – some so frightened that they walked past the door several times before they could bring themselves to knock. I ran a helpline from the house, and there were callers who couldn’t manage a single word, just silence on the line, because the fear was so great. I would gently tell them there was no rush, that I was there. For many, it was the only place in the world where they could be themselves. Knowing that still moves me today.
Ten years on, the house led to Repartee magazine, which came to be recognised as the world’s leading magazine for the trans community in the 1990s. Producing it was enormously demanding, especially at its peak when I was doing it single-handed. It wasn’t until 2007, aged 68, that I finally had feminisation surgery in Bangkok and could live my dream as a woman full-time. Ten years after that, I had full gender reassignment surgery and officially became Martine Rose. After a lifetime of waiting, it felt like coming home to myself.
I never set out to make history – I simply opened my door. So it has been quite extraordinary, all these years later, to have that story told. Rose’s House, a documentary by Naomi Abel-Hirsch, premieres at Sheffield DocFest on 13 and 14 June. Watching it, I think of that seven-year-old at the birthday party – and I wish I could tell them how it all turns out.
Find out more at @roseshousedoc_ on Instagram. You can learn more about Sheffield DocFest here, and Repartee magazine here.
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