Who Tells the Stories of Our Trans Elders?

“Where are the older trans people now?”

That’s the question Melbourne-based photographer Marlo W contemplated when they first thought of the idea for their latest project. A trans person in their 20s, Marlo wondered what life would be like for them when they got older.

“I wondered who would be taking care of me, if I needed to be taken care of,” Marlo told VICE. “In terms of trans healthcare and acceptance, what would the world look like?”

For transgender people, it’s a question with a complicated answer. The shifts of just the last few years, across public education, awareness, culture and in the medical field have been stark, and while elderly Australians are an oft-forgotten group, older transgender Australians have lived through a constantly changing attitude towards their existence. Someone who is in their 50s today would have been born into an Australia where seeking gender affirming care was still a legal grey area.

“At the moment, things are pretty good in Australia for trans people. But it’s also a bit rocky in terms of people's perceptions in society. So that got me thinking, well, where are the older trans people now? I don't know any personally, I don't really have anyone older that understands the trans experience from a personal level who I can talk to.”

As they began a process of searching for older transgender people to meet, Marlo’s first book began to take shape. Foreground: Portraits of Older Transgender and Gender Diverse People includes both photography of and interviews with 18 older transgender and gender diverse people living in Melbourne.

“I thought, wouldn't it be great if I could use my photographic practice to meet these people and interview them, to get to know about their lives and platform them?” Marlo said.

“I made these assumptions… they've probably been through tough times, where they were ostracised pretty badly in the past and not had as many opportunities as younger trans and gender diverse people have right now.”

“And I guess I just wanted to know if they were feeling accepted or not. But also how they felt about the broader climate for trans and gender diverse people, especially from an older person's lens.”

Marlo’s tender portraits are supplemented with interviews with older trans people, asked about their journeys, their gender identities, what life was like when they were growing up, and their life achievements. 

The participants are as diverse in age as they are in occupation, life experience and career. 

Julie Peters, a 72-year-old PHD author and advocate, worked behind the scenes at the ABC for thirty years. She publicly came out at work in 1990, the ABC’s first employee to do so.

Peters told VICE while she did technically count as an older trans person, she doesn’t “particularly identify with trans”.

“As I often joke, I don’t like being in a book about being trans, but about being older… wow!” she said.

“I grew up in the 1950s, the 60s were my school years, and basically what that meant was ‘trans’ wasn't even mentioned. As a three or four year old, I just thought, Gee, my parents are dumb for not realising I'm supposed to be a girl.”

Peters said she wouldn’t have used any of the same language used today. She didn’t hear the word transsexual until she was in her early 20s. 

“And gradually I learned more and more about it,” she said. “I just very consistently felt I fit better in the world as a girl, or a young woman, rather than as a boy.”

Mithra/Mithrani Mahadeva, who is dual gender, is an active member of the Frankston and Mornington LGBTQIA+ community group. They told VICE Marlo contacting them for the project was one of the best days of their life. 

“I felt like finally, I can tell someone my story,” they said. “How I couldn't acknowledge who I was, however strong it was. And to know that this younger person who is in the rainbow space cares enough to look at the bigger picture.”

While Mahadeva said their story was traumatic, they were thankful they could live as their true self now. Thinking back to how different it was for them to find their gender diverse identity when they were younger, as opposed to now, they said: “I feel sad, but I feel glad that I could say who I really am, that I got the safe space. I always call it my happy place.”

“I feel so good. I don’t feel isolated now.”

Doctor Wenn B Lawson, an author and senior researcher at Curtin University, is an advocate for autism awareness in the LGBTQI realm. He told VICE after coming out 11 years ago, aged 62, his family said they’d always known.

“I was never really in the gay scene,” he told VICE. “I was never really part of that world. So the stigma and awful things that have happened to people, either for being gay and then transitioning or being a bit different, being non binary – I didn't really experience those things.”

“My family were like, ‘we always knew’, except for my mother, who has never accepted my sexuality or gender.”

Lawson said it took him longer to make the connection because of his autism diagnosis, but that he thought he’d transitioned “at the right time”. 

“Transitioning many years ago would have been much harder,” he said. “There just weren’t the resources, there just wasn’t the understanding.”

“Not that understanding is everywhere these days, but there’s certainly more acceptance than ever.”

For Lawson, stories on the lives of older trans people were necessary, even to help or inspire others, if not to affect change.

“As an older population, it’s kind of assumed, if you’ve made it to 40 or 50 or 60, why would you want to transition? But it’s more for us about the timing in all those years before, there’s a lot of expectation, to be a partner, husband, wife, mother or father.”

He said in the past there was a lot of stigma, even from within the gay community. 

“The gay community isn’t very accepting, generally, of trans people,” he said.

“And if you’re as autistic as I am, it’s even worse.”

Mahadeva agreed that lessons from older transgender people, and projects like Marlo’s, were necessary both for trans and young queer people.

“When young people come out to their families it can be traumatic, that’s why it’s important to have the perspectives of elders because they have been through that same trauma,” they said.  

And even that trauma, and how different generations process it, has changed. For trans women of her generation, Peters said once you transitioned, the goal was to not be considered “trans” any more. You were a woman.

“They just wanted to disappear into society or in their new gender,” she said.

“Particularly in the 1970s, the dream was to transition and pass so well that nobody realised you were trans. Some of them, I don't know why the hell they wanted to do this, but some of them wanted to become just suburban housewives, that was never for me.”

While cultural understanding of transgender people has broadened in Australia, being outed has historically been, and often still is, unsafe. In the 80s and 90s, while some doctor’s offices permitted gender affirming healthcare, trans people were frequently dissuaded from socialising with other trans people. They were instructed to disappear into their gender.

Peters said to a large extent, most trans women of her generation were culturally invisible.

“They’re not out about being trans, and most of them wouldn't be in a book like this, because it's outing them. And they don't want to be outed,” said Peters.

“I know a trans woman who's been in a relationship with a man for 20 years, and she still hasn't told him that she's trans.”

Peters said her work was in trying to “demythologize trans”.

“There’s a lot of bullshit out there about what trans is,” she said.

“What I think is interesting is, in the 90s, and particularly the 80s, the mainstream was very wary of trans. And some people on the edges were quite positive.

“Whereas today, the mainstream is fairly positive about trans, but it's the edges, the far right and the far left, and the radical lesbians who are very anti-trans. So it's sort of swapped over, in that most normal people go what's the big deal?”

Marlo said meeting and profiling community elders had been an inspiring experience. They said they hoped the stories could be a source of inspiration to others.

“These people mostly had pretty tough lives when they were younger,” they said. Whether that be moving from their country seeking safety, because they weren't accepted, their gender wasn’t accepted or it wasn't legal where they were living. Or living here and not having job opportunities, or being ostracised and beaten down or having to leave their families.”

In spite of those hardships, Marlo said, they’re all “just living out their passions”.

“Murray's studying, she used to be a psychologist and she's recently quit, now she's taking up piano again. Latoya, she talked about being in the ballroom scene and a sex worker, and now she advocates for sex worker rights. And Ricky had a pretty tough upbringing in terms of her childhood, which she talks about, and coming to terms with her gender. And she’s done so much advocacy work in so many fields, like for Breast Screening Australia and Housing for the Aged Action Group. And she's also a radio broadcaster. 

“They all just do so much in their own ways,” Marlo said, “And I just thought that was really inspiring. They're not living in the shadows and letting their age or their gender affect them anymore, they're very much go-getters in their own right.”

“Foreground”, by Marlo W, is available on their site.

Arielle Richards is the multimedia reporter at VICE Australia, follow her on Instagram and TikTok.