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Brian Kennedy. You've just written a book. Just written a book. Just had a book published. In fact, um, it's called F two M the boy within, and I co-wrote it with Australian author Hazel Edwards. And so I was in Wellington, New Zealand, and she was in Melbourne, Australia, and we sent, um manuscripts back and forth for most of the year, I think and ended up with a young adult fiction book [00:00:30] published by Ford Street Publishing. So yeah, and how did you know her? Have you always written stuff with her? Or, um, she's a family friend of ours, So I've known her since I was 11. Um and yeah, she knew me as a female for most of my life. And I caught up with her when I was in Melbourne in 2008, and we met up, and, um, she'd been working on a book about gender identity for younger kids and was, you know, [00:01:00] just generally interested in my transition and thought I was looking pretty happy, which I was. And, um, yeah, I thought this would be a good a good project for us, and so I I'd kept a journal um, online while I was transitioning. Um, from when I when I just From about a year before I decided to transition. Actually. So, um, I went back and had a look at what I'd written then and I I sent over a version of that, um to her and and she thought it would be a good, good sort of basis [00:01:30] for a story. And it's a book aimed at young people. Um, yeah, Hope. Hopefully, some young people will eventually end up reading it. We've just had reviewers and people we know read it so far. So it would be really good to get some actual feedback from some kids. Um, so I guess it's aimed at, um, around sort of 12 13 onwards. The character, the main character, is 18 and has recently left school and has decided [00:02:00] to transition from female to male as I did. And so is the book completely autobiographical? It's It's actually not particularly autobiography a bit because he superpowers mhm. You have to read it and find it. Um, well, I transitioned at 27 and so, and it's a little bit of a fantasy for me. Actually, it's if if I had had a book like this. If I had had [00:02:30] the information available to me at that age, then I would have, you know, definitely transitioned a lot younger. It wasn't It wasn't until I was 27 that I actually clicked. That it was it was possible. And that was probably a year after hearing about other people who'd done the same thing. And it took that long to sink in. Um, but I drew on sort of my experience in the punk scene. It set in the punk scene. And I drew on my, uh, sort of experience with, um, the medical sequence. Really, with all the doctor's [00:03:00] appointments and, uh, psychiatrists assessments and all those sorts of things and so that that was pretty much based on my experience. We changed it around a little bit, and I had to do some research because found out that sort of one of my experience of the sequence here wasn't really particularly normal. Um, or standard. And so just for the sort of flow of the story and the continuity of the plot and things, it was easy to change it, but yeah, a little bit. So you transitioned when you were 27. [00:03:30] What? What was happening before you were 27 or 26? If you had heard about it a year year before you transitioned, I was pretty pretty unhappy and pretty frustrated. Actually, it seemed like I had tried everything to make my life work, and I still had not hit on the winning formula. You know, I, I tried, sort of, uh um straight from uni, looking for work and not really finding anything that [00:04:00] was particularly satisfying. I tried sort of dropping out and being a being a punk activist musician, and, um and then I tried, um, just working menial jobs. I tried working in professional jobs, um, when I could get them, and it just seemed that nothing really worked. And even when I had a really great bunch of friends and thought that I could sort of get my life going in a good direction, I went back to uni again, and and it just seemed that my life was just continually imploding, [00:04:30] like every every step I took didn't seem to be getting me forward. And then and then I discovered you know, these guys online, who I was reading their journals. It was on the live journal site and it and that's when it clicked because it was like reading about me. And I thought, Wow, they're just like me. I could really do this. I could actually do this. And that was, um that was pretty momentous, but yeah, it's just just trying not understanding why nothing was working. [00:05:00] And for so many years, it seems like years all through my twenties, you know, up until I was 27 just trying everything and yeah, and it just didn't quite fit kind of thing. Yeah, it would. It would sort of work for a little while, I think. Yeah, this is a pretty good job, but yeah, I'm going to make a new start at uni or going to end this relationship that's not very good for me and be single, and then I'll be like, Oh, this person is going to solve my problems and everything was going to, you know, move [00:05:30] flats. That that will fix everything. It wasn't, but yeah, it was It was just going around in circles. Really. And what was the the punk music activist scene like? Um, that was really good, actually, because there isn't a lot in terms of gender roles. No, this was here. Yeah. Um, yeah. There's not. A lot of the gender roles are there in the punk scene. Um, but they're not particularly strict. I mean, basically, you can do whatever you like and no one minds, you know? And so I found that really liberating. [00:06:00] Um, not really. Not really knowing why at the time, I just thought the whole the whole scene itself was pretty liberating, but yeah, once I transitioned, I thought, Yeah, that's why that was That was such a good fit for me at that time. Hm. And what about when you were we? Did you have an inkling or did it not really come up then? Or I was always a tomboy. Um, it was It was good when I when I was really little. Because, you know, everyone just plays together and yeah, up to a certain point. Um, yeah, the boys and [00:06:30] girls, just It's not really a distinction. It was about. It was about seven or eight. I think about seven or eight years old, there starts to be. The boys start to push away and want to do their own thing. And, you know, the girls get into little groups and the groups that pain of my life girls and their bloody groups. So what did you do when the girls were in their wee groups and the boys were you, like, try and break into a group as best you can or, you know, you end up in the in the [00:07:00] group of everybody else who doesn't have a group, usually my group. Actually, it's just Yeah, um, I guess trying to get in on the boys sports, but they were pretty protective of that. And was this this was in Australia or here? That was in Australia. I moved here when I was 22. So after I had finished with uni Not exactly finished uni Yeah, yeah, yeah. So most of I guess my adult [00:07:30] life has been here, So when you transitioned when you were 27 was it really easy? I guess after you'd you'd heard about it A year before. You're like, right, that's it. And it just it just rolled. Or I guess it was really difficult in some ways, because you're you're kind of on one side of this kind of chasm, and you're not sure how to get across to the other side. And you know that other people [00:08:00] have got across to the other side. So there must be a way, Um, and just following up leads like you go to this doctor and, you know, and and all the personal stuff around friends like having to continually remind people for years sometimes that you have a new name and that you have a new pronoun and you want to be called he and and that's all the time, Not just some of the time and a that that stuff can get can really wear [00:08:30] you down, actually, and it just even. I mean, my friends are pretty supportive, but even even still that it's those little things that just just really get to you after a while. You're like, Oh, I just want it to be over. And it just seems to take so long and and also if you're having any particular struggle for, um, hormones or treatment in any way because I was on Prozac at the time and and the endocrinologist decided that I wouldn't be able [00:09:00] to have shots because I may have some sort of episode. And even though I had absolutely no history of any sorts of episodes whatsoever that that he would know about, um and well at all, in fact, I mean, he had a very short history of me. Um, then that was just really frustrating because it wasn't It wasn't the right treatment for me. And nothing I said would would change his mind. Um and so, yeah, those. I can just remember those times as being really frustrating And the binding the chest binding gave [00:09:30] me a lot of back pain and, well, chest pain as well. I mean, you get it's hard to breathe and and that sort of thing. But I also one of the first things I did when I decided to transition was to quit smoking, because it was pretty much one of the very few things I actually had control over at that point. And and I also decided to lose some weight because that was the only other thing I could control. I couldn't get on hormones. I couldn't make people accept me as male yet because I didn't look [00:10:00] and sound male. Um, and I just I just had to hold on to these things that I actually could do. And and in retrospect, it was a lot easier to transition than it was to quit smoking. It really was, um, because quitting smoking is is like a daily struggle for a long time, and and it doesn't really get any easier for months and sometimes years. Sometimes I still crave a cigarette, even though it's pretty easy to say no now it's been six years or something, [00:10:30] Um, but I mean, once you're actually on hormones and and you're starting to pass as male and people are not even people who've known you for years are getting your brain right and everything starts to sort of snowball and happen. Then it takes care of itself. Really? Yeah, just the comparison is it's funny to think about now. You'd think you'd think about changing gender and quitting smoking, but quitting smoking is much harder. Was it a long transition, like for [00:11:00] you to feel to get over that chasm or through the chasm? Was it a how many of your time is relative and everything, but we're talking three months or five years or two weeks, or I guess it was about two years before I felt like I was passing all the time. And and for me, it was. How long was it? It was another year and a half after that. It was about 3.5 to 4 years before I got chest surgery. So that was the next point. [00:11:30] There was a kind of a point I realised. Yeah, II. I had a lot of fatigue. So, um, when I went on hormones and so I was actually on the sickness benefit for a while and then, yeah, I realised that I I was starting to perk up a bit and that I was passing as male enough to kind of into the workforce as male. But I was still I was still bound for a couple of years after that. And that was that was kind of like, Yeah, I'm I'm living as male. Everything's happening. I walked into a job, of course, which I'd never done [00:12:00] being female, Not in it anyway. Um, but yeah, it was the next hurdle was just surgery, and it just took a while for that to happen. And, yeah, once Once that happened, then I guess I felt like that was when I had sort of had finished the process. Um, I didn't I didn't think that there was anything to come after that, not in terms of sort of body modification or mentally. Or I mean, there's still little things all the time. I sort of sometimes [00:12:30] when I'm just hanging out with, um, a group of men and I think how different it used to be and how how the whole situation would be completely different with with me feeling at ease. But they're kind of weary and it's just a different dynamic. And now I can sort of be in those situations and and if I remember, I kind of stopped to think this is something I really appreciate because it just It's just so normal for me. And it's something that I kind of work so hard to get, even though it's something [00:13:00] that's so normal for me. So, yeah, I don't I don't really hm I. I don't underestimate those sorts of situations is how significant they are. Yeah, trying to appreciate things when you started. Did you start tea before? As as part of your transitioning and we were there. Big emotional changes. Oh, jeez, it was just a myth. Emotional changes. [00:13:30] Um, I had a lot less. Yeah, I felt I just felt so normal. I felt like I could really think properly properly. For the first time in my life, I like a kind of fog lifting or or like, having a coffee in the morning. It's more. It's more having a coffee, I think. Well, I, I I could concentrate on things I could. I could read books a lot faster. I could learn things [00:14:00] a lot faster. I completely lost the ability to multitask. And I have had to learn a whole new way of multitasking where I do one thing at a time, and then I do a different thing. And then I do a different I can't do several things at once, and and I used to be able to do that. Really? Um, but that Yeah, that's something. It's one of those funny things that people say. Moon can't multitask. I really they was the testosterone. I lost ability. Um, but yeah, everything else is just just really fallen into place [00:14:30] as far as how I think and I think if I had, if I if I had transitioned at the at the same age that my main character transitioned, then I would have done a lot better at university than I than I did and I might have. I might have chosen something a bit more than I was suited to. So why did Holy culture? So you're saying that, um, most of your friends were pretty supportive? Were there any questions? Oh, they all had 100 questions. It's It's so [00:15:00] it's interesting how many different questions there are. And when you think you've heard them all, someone will come out with something else and what have been some really, really odd ones? Oh God, it's hard to remember now. Some odd questions I got what are some would be some really standard questions as well, with people's confusions or not getting it Or, um um, well, a lot of it. It usually starts with W. When [00:15:30] did you know? And that sort of thing It's like people want to know the history of it because they're trying to understand it, I think, and, um, just I think people wanted to know in advance how I would change. And and some people thought I might become everything that men that they don't respect alike. And so I would suddenly become all the all the bad types of male Just because I want to become male. Like why? Why do you want to become [00:16:00] that? You know, when a lot of times did you kind of think, what kind of man am I going to be? Or you were like, No, no, just because I'm a man in my head. I was already Yeah, I just I was already male, but nothing was working out, so yeah, I guess it It all happened externally. Like the change happened externally, The the hormones made me look and sound and and think differently. But, you know, I was still [00:16:30] I was still the same. So Yeah, it was It was funny to watch people sort of grief a little bit at that. My female, this female person they knew kind of disappeared, um, and then realised that it was still me all along, that nothing had changed. Really? And it was just You just couldn't multitask anymore. Yeah, exactly. All those jobs off to you? Yeah. Don't talk to him while he's putting the dishes away. [00:17:00] How did you identify sexual orientation wise before you transitioned, Or did you even identify sexual orientation I identified as a lesbian? For What was it the eight years? I think since I was 19, Um, because that was the closest I could get. Really, Butch female, like swim must be dark, you know? And I guess that's pretty common for trans guys. Um and [00:17:30] yeah, that that was just I never really fit that well, that that was the closest I could get. And I was still I was happy with that. And that was one of the things that just after I'd started hormones, I was kind of in a, um, like, a lesbian discussion group. Or it could have been just an all female discussion group, and I was sitting there thinking, Oh, well, I shouldn't really be here. And I won't be here for much longer. And then I thought, is I wondered if this would be something that I would really miss. Um, it wasn't, but [00:18:00] yeah, I wondered if it would be. And so and so when I meet the kind of women that I was hanging out with then and and And they sort of think, Oh, you're just some guy. And I'm like, I used to be one of you. You used to accept me, but I don't really care. And did they struggle with that at all, or they just like, Oh, yeah, um, I was that some of the grief stuff was that you talked about? Um I don't really know, actually, because I kind of dropped out of that sort of social scene as well. [00:18:30] When I transitioned, I sort of, um yeah, was it just natural to drop out because, you know, you're a man and it's a woman's face or whatever Or did you feel a bit forced out or unwelcome or I just need There was a whole big drama and I needed to change. And so, yeah, I just thought I'd go back to my original friends and, um, yeah, he didn't have anything in particular to do with any sort of scene other than hanging out with each other. And that's when I got my rabbit. [00:19:00] Yeah, and has your seizure or changed or shifted in any way since transitioning on hormones. Actually, was it was it really unexpected. You were like, Whoa, what's going on? And you're like, Oh, yeah, this makes sense completely unexpected. I was like, Whoa, what's going on here? And because I because I started, I guess I started out considering myself to be straight to her boyfriend when I was 18 and thought I was gonna go [00:19:30] that way for a while, But yeah, Then I got pretty heavily into girls and, um, yeah, so to have that reawakened, I guess it was a bit weird and that's kind of settled down a lot. Now, though, I think that was mainly hormones. So kind of everyone is everyone and anyone look good kind of thing. Yeah, I can do. I can do the faggy thing. It can be very camp. Sometimes My wife gives me shit about it. She can be very dokey sometimes. So, you know, [00:20:00] you cover all the spectrums of the GB IXYZ ABC with the glit fab. That's my favourite one was fab. What is it? There's been intersex, trans gender, something else that starts with T asexuals. I like there's a T in there that I'm not sure I think it's got two T and I don't know what the other T is. It could [00:20:30] be transgender and transsexual or transgender, and it'll be That's it. I like it. It's much better than GL BT I, I think. Yeah. Thank you for having yam with us. Give us the name of your book and publisher, et cetera, et cetera. So people can track that down online if they wish. Yes, my book, F two. M The Boy Within Co-authored with Hazel Edwards and it's published by Ford [00:21:00] Street Publishing. So if you Google any of those things, you'll find a link. Awesome. Thank you very much. Thank you.
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