Transpeople are just like any other ordinary person; they have the same aspirations and fears in life. Yet, our society’s collective refusal to accept them for who they are have extremely real and violent consequences on the lives of transpeople.
Throughout our interview process, we have come across many individuals with different stories, some positive, some heartbreaking, and some bittersweet.
One of our interviewees is Sham, a 28-year-old Indian transman whose story shook all of us to our core. The extreme level of abuse he and his girlfriend have faced as well as their fortitude that stood throughout the difficult times left an indelible impression on us.
We therefore wish to share his story with you in his own words. At his request, we have kept Sham’s and his girlfriend, Patricia’s names. They wish to attach their identities to this story, to inspire understanding and bravery in others.
Read on for Sham’s story, as told to The Swan Project…
(*small grammatical edits are made to the original transcript)
“To me, transpeople are normal people like anyone else. I don’t see the need to give them a different name to identify them. Like if you see a male-to-female (MTF), instead of categorisation, you know like MTF, transgender, transwoman. Just simplify it to woman.
I first realise that I am a man by soul and woman physically… when I was very young. Even before I attended school. I get attracted to girls more than guys. But I understood about being transgender and going to transition during the 20s. During my teenage days, I thought it’s ok to love a woman/girl. You know it’s like normal. But I realise it wasn’t that easy. People don’t accept it. Society doesn’t accept it. I wanted to be a man both mentally and physically. Therefore, I chose to go through hormone therapy.
April 28th 2014, was my first testosterone shot. I knew about hormone therapy and all when I was 21. But I never wanted to do it at first. I did not dare to do the transitioning at a young age basically because of my fear for this society. I was worried what might happen to me. But I couldn’t take it to live a double life. I forgo all this emotional stress and took the first shot.
At the workplace, I don’t get discriminated. I worked as a dog handler and then doggy daycare supervisor and then as an assistant groomer. My bosses were never looking down on my gender crisis. Neither do they make fun when I introduce my girlfriend as my girlfriend.
Relationship wise, I had hard times. Problems were given by my girlfriend’s parents. My girlfriend was actually straight. She was having rough times with her then boyfriend, who was apparently playing behind her back for 3 years. So she finally decided to get to know more friends. That’s how she got to know me.
She’s from an all-girls school, so her sisters and her parents were aware of the terms ‘lesbian’ and ‘butch’. I seriously got no idea why the sisters were opposing the relationship of me and Patricia (my girlfriend). We were dating at that point of time. The sisters insist that she should only date men. Or rather, the ex whom was cheating on her. They were fine with the fact that he is a flirt as to them men are supposed to be like that. According to Patricia, the sisters were in lesbian relationships before, wasn’t serious though.
I remember a few incidents that happened. I was once invited by my girlfriend to attend a Christmas party that was happening at her house. This incident happened before I started transition. A few butches I know who studied in Patricia’s school were supposed to attend as well. They attended few years back. Patricia assured me that her family are fine with lesbians and butches. I’ve seen a few photos of Patricia’s mum with the butches so I felt comfy and I went.
What happened after that was a total nightmare. Although her mother was smiling and all, I was totally uncomfortable. I don’t know why. My instinct was telling me there’s going to be a big mess. The mother asked for my name. I said Sham and she said, “I want the full name. The one in your IC.”
I’m in the house surrounded by total strangers, Patricia’s friends, her sister’s friends, relatives and her family friends. I had to look at Patricia and asked her for help. She helped to say my full name. I feel embarrassed. Basically because I’ve never uttered my full name for years. People have always known me as Sham. Then the mother said, “Nice name you got. Next time people ask, give your full name. It’s nice that way.” Being a guest, I didn’t want to show attitude. I smiled.
Patricia wanted to introduce me to her father. The father was totally drunk when she introduced me to him, he was drinking with a few boys. So judging from my appearance, he was like “come here young man, join us for drinks.” But Patricia intercepted by saying I’m a girl. He immediately took his arm which was around my shoulder away. He was like, “Oh” and he looked away, continued his conversation with the other boys. They were all looking at me. I was pissed by now. I told Patricia: “I’m leaving. I did not come here to get humiliated.” But she insisted that I should stay. I stayed back for the sake of her plea.
Then we sitting on the sofa, beside one another, talking and all… Patricia was blushing and I was looking at her. When suddenly, her sister told her to sit away from me. I asked the sister why and she went to Patricia’s mum and told her we were sitting very close. Her mother was shouting to Patricia saying why is she so close to me and asked her to move away from me. This time, I looked at the mother and said, “You are going too much.”
I looked at Patricia and walked off. Hearing the commotion, the father came over to the hall. By then, I was at the corridor wearing my shoes and Patricia was begging me to stay. So the father asked the mother, “Where’s the ladyboy?” Wow. So many people were there and you just gave a loud comment about my gender identity. I immediately walked away.
That was my first humiliation.
After they found out we are in a relationship, they made matters worse for us. Patricia was beaten up repeatedly for 3 hours. None of her family members helped her. They are Catholic and her father claims he feels embarrassed.
He kicked her vagina until she peed on the bed. She was cornered and was begging him to stop. He’s an alcoholic so he was totally drunk and lost control. Patricia ran away as she couldn’t take her father’s beating.
People were sent to my workplace to threaten me to be careful. All those typical Indian gangster boys… Patricia’s mother and father sent me non-stop harassing messages.
Patricia’s father actually send people from church to “purify” Patricia, because she is in “devil’s hand” and people actually came to meet Patricia and talk to her, saying she’s under devil’s spell. These people really make me angry.
Patricia’s father messaged me saying I need to be gang banged or raped so that I’ll know how it feels to have a dick in me and it’ll change my mindset to straight and I’ll start to date guys and know that I can’t be a guy.
This is still happening and Patricia is staying with me now. She left her house 1 year back.
Not only Patricia’s family, Patricia’s boyfriend too. He was a pain in my ass, who keeps coming to Patricia knowing she has been dating me, saying that he is sorry because of him she had become a lesbian. The problem here is, none needs to be sorry. She didn’t get a deadly disease. She’s just attracted to the same sex. That’s all.
I had a hard time trying to get rid of him from Patricia’s life. He claimed they had sex while they were together and whatever ‘sex’ we had is not considered sex and that she had lost her virginity to him. He tried his best to further explain that she had done oral sex for him and by me kissing her is equivalent to me sucking his dick. Then he told Patricia that he went to search my history through people who might be related to me. Those people told him that I was raped by a guy and therefore become a butch as I hate men after the incident. It’s funny how people create shit stories. I don’t know what made him gave such a strong statement or why does he have to say all that to make him feel like a real man. Anyway, although I was affected by these lies, I slowly overcame it. Took me some time.
People of Singapore interviewed me, and a few people got to know me. The family also got to know about this too, that I was going through transition. Then, Patricia’s mother started harassing Patricia at work, telling her that she wants Patricia to contact her and she has finally accepted us. This was like a year back.
I was happy… but it was all lies. She wanted money and all she does is call us for cash. If we give, we are good people. If we don’t, she scolds very badly. The last straw was this year, August 16.
Before that, Patricia’s family forged her signature to take her edusave money for her sister’s education, which I opposed, cause it’s forgery. I told Patricia to lodge a complain but she wanted to solve it by informing the school. So we informed the school and the money was refunded, and they had to pay cash. The mother and sister weren’t happy about it.
During that period of time, I was working as an assistant groomer at a pet shop, at Upper Thomson. I started work 2 weeks before the incident. It was Saturday afternoon around 12pm, super crowded afternoon and I was on break. I went to buy food for myself and my boss. Then suddenly, I heard someone calling out my name. I turned. It was Patricia’s mother and sisters. They cornered me and asked me where Patricia was. I was confused, not to say they don’t know she’s staying with me. She has been staying with me for a year.
Then the mother started to shout, “Hey you boy or girl? You wearing bra, panties or underwear?”
There were a lot of people looking at me and most of the shopkeepers there know me as I’m a regular customer. Furthermore, my (now) ex-boss had the grooming shop there for 15 years. I didn’t want to answer, tried to walk away but the sisters cornered me. The mother made a fool out of herself by stopping passersby to ask me whether I am a boy or girl. By now, my voice sounds like a guy. When I speak to the mother, asking her to stop talking like this, the sister was like, “eww please stop talking. I’m so disgusted to hear your voice.”
By now, a small crowd has formed. The mother started to entertain the crowd by saying that I’m a girl, bapok, tomboy, who took her daughter away, separated the family and broke their happiness… She even asked me why I’m not ashamed to be an “in-between”. She said that I deserve to be fucked by her husband to straighten me. She also asked how I have sex with her daughter, called me names. She asked me again if I wore bra, panties.
I got angry and told her, “What I wear doesn’t concern you. It’s your daughter that is sleeping with me every night. If you desperately want to know what I’m wearing, come and sleep with me tonight.” The mother couldn’t take these words, took her slipper off and hit me in public. The sisters, too, started hitting me, throwing metal racks and all.
Luckily, my boss who was wondering how come I haven’t came back, started to find me. My boss happened to see the commotion and stopped the fight. He shoved the mother against the wall and defended me. He told her, “She could be whatever you claim she is. But for now, she is my staff and you got no rights to hit her. You wait here, I’ll call the police. She loving your daughter is their business. Even as a mother, you got no rights to stop 2 people from falling in love. You not happy, you file a complaint. Don’t come here and create drama.”
The mother left cause she was worried police might arrive.
I went to make a police report after that. I had a fracture, quite bad. I had to put on metal plates. I lost my job and was on MC for 3 months. I can’t use my right hand till now, waiting for recovery.
Patricia couldn’t take it anymore, she filed for PPO (personal protection order) against her family and she got it. Police are still investigating my case and since I don’t have much cash, I’m taking twice to do magistrate complain. Patricia and I are both staying in a rental room and my medical bill has reached about 4K, after government subsidy and Medisave. With this injured hand, I’m working night as security to make ends meet, with no CPF contributions.
The most serious issues would be being bullied. Or, being discriminated because of their gender identity crisis. The Indian society is a very conservative community. Although it’s a new century now, they cringe when they see ‘odd’ couples like us. They haven’t advanced like other races. I’m not discriminating my own race. But this is the fact. They have so far started to accept gay men and transgender women. They regard transgender as equivalent to god. Some men even post publicly that they are loving transgender woman. But I don’t know why they don’t seem to accept butches or transmen.
They don’t accept us as in they still make fun of a butch, thinking that after all they are a woman at the end of the day. But they don’t say like that to a trans woman.They don’t say you are a man after all. Like my cousins, they are so used to calling me sis even though I sound like and look like a man. I’m having facial hair and all, yet they are still calling me “sis”. This frustrates me a lot. They find it hard to change. However, society is changing. Everyone is changing. I just wish that people respect and also start to use the right pronouns on me.
None chose this path. None wants to live a double life and let people bully you. None deserves to be called names. None has the rights to tell us what we should do. There’s no definition to how a woman/man should be.
When I get publicly humiliated, none bothered to help. That’s another thing. And also when the police looked into the matter, things don’t seem to be investigated.
I never really had problems coming out to the society. Although I’ve lost some close friends, I’m fine… For this is me, I’m a transman and I am happy with myself. People who are gay, struggling to come out should never fear the society. I want to be an inspiration for people like me who want to come out. I want them to know that there is such a person who have gone through horrible things and is still surviving.
The society is not going to help us. We need to help us. So we should never worry about what people will talk about us.
Sham & Patricia
Sham will be going for his Sex Reassignment Surgery in August next year, in Bangkok, Thailand. By his 30th birthday next year, Sham will be a man and in his own words, “That’s the best thing that could ever happen to me.”
The Swan Project 