Jack Monroe: ‘I want to be treated as a person, not as a woman or a man’
Jack Monore was suicidal, unable to function and months of psychiatric treatment followed. Finally, she was referred to a gender identity clinic. And then, on 11 October last year, she made an announcement on Twitter. “Yes I am transgender.”
She was, she explained, “non-binary transgender”. She wasn’t transitioning to male. She was transitioning to being neither female nor male, or at least a bit of both.
And while public awareness may be increasing, the realities of gender dysphoria and the struggles that most people who have experienced it have gone through are still misunderstood, and misconceptions are widespread. Monroe is taking testosterone. “The first months were phenomenal. My libido went through the roof. And I’ve been a lot less depressed. It seems to have balanced my hormones out. I’ve felt physically and mentally a lot better in myself.”
Once you start to deconstruct the absolutes of gender you realise you don’t have to have a cock to be a man
But she is not considering sexual reassignment surgery. “I don’t want to be crude but I have an excellent vagina and I’d like to keep it working exactly as it does.”
Do people assume she wants reassignment?
“People assume a) that I want a cock. And b) that I would like a very particular kind of sex. Both those things are completely untrue. They think that because I’m trans, I’m only attracted to very feminine women. Right now, it’s very masculine men, actually. So you don’t know anything.”