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Catherine FindingMcGREGOR “I moved the from a home that I shared with a wife whom I PHOTOGRAPHY by KRISTINA SOLJO • STYLING by MATTIE CRONAN loved.” realeeting Cate McGregor, me the first thing you notice She was the world’s highest ranking transgender is her gentle bygone era elegance. Cate is tall with military officer and after seven years transitioning beauty salon grooming and a lot of sacrifice, Cate McGregor is finally Mand a chic dress sense. Behind the tailored exterior, there’s a tentative happy in her skin, she tells Juliet Rieden. ‘I can’t believe I’m here’ vulnerability, but then the whip smart intellect kicks of international competition cricket to express myself, there was an awful in and this extraordinary, courageous, evaporate. “I suspect I appeared lot of grief.” deep-thinking former Group Captain in happier and better adjusted than I was, Cate had spent her whole life fighting the Royal Australian Air Force cannot but I think I probably was in full-on an inner turmoil that unpicked the very help but take centre stage and shine. survival mode. A lot of the reality sank heart of her being. Externally she was a It’s five years since Cate first spoke to in years later. With hindsight I should super fit, high-functioning member of The Weekly. It was a pivotal interview have let my transition settle more the armed forces, publicly admired and in the early days of her gender before I went public, both in terms of successful. But internally she was falling transition from Malcolm, decorated the physiology of it and having more apart and felt compelled to embark on army officer, married man, cricket grasp of what I was going through,” the most cataclysmic journey of her commentator and political adviser, to says Cate who admits that while the life even though she knew it was likely Catherine, the trans woman she says story gave her confidence, it also to crush everything she held dear. she was always “meant to be”. sparked a backlash she hadn’t foreseen. “I had got to a point with the To come out from the shadows of a “The fact is, I was pretty traumatised. [gender] dysphoria that I couldn’t have lifetime in the wrong body in the pages There was a lot of public abuse and lived any other way, but there have been of Australia’s most iconic women’s vitriol directed through social media substantial losses.” The most distressing magazine was the stuff of dreams for and there was also plenty of fame and was the collapse of her marriage. Cate. “It helped me to feel that my adulation suddenly thrust on me and “I moved from a home that I shared claim to function socially as a woman I had no road map for that. I’d gone with a wife whom I loved into a single was not totally insane.” But, sadly, it from having a fairly normal anonymous bedroom apartment,” Cate explains in also heralded the start of a traumatic life doing my work in the military and quiet, measured tones, trying not to give journey which took Cate to the verge happily married, to being relatively well in to the emotion that engulfs her every of suicide, wrecked the most important known fairly quickly and despite the time she talks about her ex-wife. relationship in her life and saw her fact that I had a certain amount of In 1995 Cate – then Malcolm – met

beloved connection with the world experience at surviving and being able Tritia. They wed in 2001. It was a → THROUGHOUT. CUTTON PERRI WEARS CATE POWELL. SAMANTHA BY MAKE-UP AND HAIR

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blissful union which for a while papered with conflict and deeply distressed. and I’ve had a history of alcohol Lovers and haters over the cracks of what was later I couldn’t see a way forward and I just abuse a long time ago. I haven’t had a Cate’s transition is now complete and diagnosed as classic gender dysphoria. wanted to go to sleep and not wake up. drink for nearly 30 years. But I got at 63 she feels she’s arrived. A few The marriage was the first and most There were two things that intervened habituated on sedatives for a while months ago she received a deeply painful casualty of Cate’s new identity. – one was some cricket friends who and had trouble stopping them, poignant letter from fellow trans Tritia had no idea what the man she “This is who didn’t know there was anything wrong including around surgery time. I put woman Amanda Taylor, who had read had married was going through. “It but insisted I come to dinner. And then them down but coming off sedation Cate’s story in The Weekly when she was the last thing she expected. She I am, it’s who I met Rahul Dravid [a former captain can be quite challenging, too.” was sent it by a concerned friend. had no inkling,” says Cate. “There was of India’s cricket team] and we had To her delight, Cate began to develop Amanda was contemplating suicide nothing effeminate about me. I wasn’t I’m meant this happenstance meeting that was a bust and buttocks, her shape softened and says the story saved her life. “The a cross-dresser and I didn’t have secret extremely influential. I went home and she saw a light at the end of the impact was instantly so profound it wardrobes. I’d experimented with my to be.” and flushed the pills away.” tunnel. “It felt really wonderful, deeply was life changing,” Amanda tells me. gender younger, a long time before The process of transitioning gender is gratifying and I was very fortunate that “Catherine and my stories had so many I met her, and walked away from the strictly regulated and takes years. “In it seemed to work reasonably well.” similarities, but there were some distinct process back in the ’80s. I thought, it’s my first year and a bit, once the psychs For the first time in her life Cate felt differences: Catherine had forged ahead not an option, I can’t do this, you’ve concluded that I didn’t have any other that her external body matched her and acted on her gender dysphoria (and just got to get on with it.” indicated conditions – I wasn’t schizoid, internal self. “You hear the Christian come out the other side with respect Looking back, Cate can see that her I wasn’t bipolar, I wasn’t hallucinating, Lobby and others going on about and dignity) where I was defeated and embrace of a macho world, as a crack it wasn’t a dissociative disorder, it was sex change regret and they wheel out ready to give in.” The two have now soldier, an accomplished sportsman a pretty textbook case of gender incredibly isolated instances. I know met and Amanda credits Catherine and a political dynamo, was part of dysphoria – I started oestrogen thousands of trans people now and with turning her life around. her way of eclipsing her femininity. treatment which feminises the body. the incidence of trans regret, gender Cate is used to getting letters – some But in November 2011, suffering from “The thing that people don’t talk reassignment regret or sex change from fans but also hate mail. The acute depression and anxiety, Cate’s about very much, and it can sound regret, is infinitesimal compared with haters largely choose the cowardly feelings of being trapped in the wrong insensitive to born women is the those who are fulfilled and happy. anonymity of social media to voice body took hold with what she hormonal process. Injecting huge “In my case, I just think, this is who their bile. “My impulse control is poor describes as “an incredible intensity”. amounts of hormones into someone I am, it’s who I’m meant to be. I think and I shouldn’t have got dragged into “I thought, I’ve been here before who’s assigned male at birth and it’s abundantly clear and people who the fights I got into on social media and this will probably blow over so they look male; you go through an knew me, people who see me now, with a lot of these idiots,” confesses don’t alarm Tritia or say anything adjustment period and you’re quite can see I’m more fulfilled and more Cate. “Their behaviour is appalling but about it. But I was in dire straits. I’d hormonal at periods. I had no idea centred and more present than I ever it doesn’t mean I have to respond and lost weight and I wasn’t sleeping. She why I was so emotional and it took was. They can see the essential I no longer do. I’m happy living my life [Tritia] knew that something was a while for that to even out. The rightness in this.” as I am and they can rant and rave and deeply wrong and, in her mind, endocrinologists don’t prepare you The next step was gender reassignment call me a man and use my male name thought that I was probably grappling Both of us were conscious that we were people – and there are many, particularly for that. They’re very conscious of surgery. “It took a while to make up my as much as they like; but I’m winning.” with some kind of repressed memory.” trying to keep something alive between in the Christian Lobby, who continually heightened risk of breast cancer and mind. It’s a big decision. It’s major surgery. For Amanda, Cate is a role model, When Cate revealed what was really us and each of us had arrived at a harass Cate – she is at pains to point blood clotting. They manage you You’re out for about six hours. I had but not everyone in the trans going on the response was just as she decision that we didn’t want never to out that no one would actively choose physiologically very well, but you’re not anxiety about it. I thought, you can die community agrees. “There’s a lot of had feared. “Tritia was shocked, bereft, have the other person in their life,” this life. There’s no question it would on the path to womanhood the way a under major surgery in your 60s. Why hostility directed towards me from the hurt and bewildered. It’s still the explains Cate. have been far easier for Cate to have teenage girl is; no one’s saying, you’re would you have elective surgery at that trans and queer communities. I’m too hardest conversation I’ve ever had,” “We settled the property stuff in stayed as Malcolm, but in all likelihood, off your trolley, this’ll pass and you’re age? But in the end I knew I was ready, big for my boots, I’m too grand, I’m Cate recalls. “She couldn’t abide being the first year or two but we only she wouldn’t be here today if she had. in a bad mood. I had no guidance for that there was a sense of completeness too privileged, all this stuff,” says Cate. close to the transition process. She felt divorced in late 2016, four years on. “I had two slender thread moments, that stuff and muddled through. accompanying it and that happened.” Cate’s sexuality has remained the the loss herself and was dealing with There’s separation and loss involved one nearly 30 years ago when a phone “I took oral oestrogen and I had In many ways Cate wishes she’d had same despite several amorous admirers. that as best she could. She wanted to in that but we’re still close and I try rang when I was about to hang myself – implants in my buttocks. Transition, the courage to do this years ago but “I get guys hitting on me all the time. be alone and I moved out.” to respect her privacy. The fact is, I actually had a noose round my neck. I guess, is an appropriate term. You then she wouldn’t have met Tritia. I’m puzzled by the phenomenon, to be Tritia appears many times in our I wouldn’t have survived this had That was a sliding door moment … I don’t create someone overnight. And “The only countervailing thing is that honest, I’m staggered by it. I think conversation. Theirs is obviously a deep we been in an incredibly adversarial also thought about dying in Adelaide especially having gone through male I met the love of my life and married probably from what I’ve read and and unquenchable bond, a meeting of relationship. I think it would have during the Test match in 2012 after puberty and reached the state of her and I can’t imagine life without her, anecdotally I don’t know that many souls that Cate says she will never find been one extra burden that might Australia Day, when it was announced development I had, it was like turning so that was a great gift and it offsets people’s sexual orientation changes with with anyone else. “We’ve stayed in have made the difference. I might that I’d been awarded the Order of around the Titanic. It couldn’t happen that sense of loss. I think there was an their gender and I’m not into men.” touch and she has never been hostile. not have been able to go on.” Australia.” Cate – then Malcolm – was fast enough for me once I embarked inevitability about our meeting and And in any case Cate is not looking There were moments when we had covering the match in her job as a on it, but I was very fit and I was lean being as close as we were. But when for love. “I’m not open to it. I’m single issues. She felt betrayal and loss, as she’s Becoming Cate cricket commentator, a role she later and my body adapted well.” the dysphoria came back, one of the and I’ve met the love of my life and entitled to, but we took years to divorce Cate’s journey to womanhood has been lost in the maelstrom of becoming Cate. The transition was tough and at reasons I was so suicidal was I felt my I’ve been richly blessed. I have no because neither of us ever wanted to long and tortured and to the brutish “I thought, this should be the times Cate admits she buckled. “I was time had come and gone. I thought, claim on her and if she were to meet drive the other one out of their life. critics who rail against transgender proudest day in my life and I’m riven medicated for depression and anxiety I’m going to die without doing this.” someone else I would still feel bereft →

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but I know that’s a possibility. I loss around the family. My wish her well, obviously, I want older sister has been a real the very best for her no matter rock. She was a former what it is but I’ve got no Catholic nun and she’s been curiosity about having someone incredibly supportive. But in my life. We’re still close. We my brother died after I live in the same city and we transitioned and I never met share a lot. We look out for one him after transition. He another still and that matters found it incomprehensible. deeply to me and it’s been a He couldn’t address me by very significant part of helping my female name.” me survive what’s gone on.” Tritia has seen the change Another regret was losing in Cate and it has helped her her job as a cricket writer. It understand. “She says, there is happened when she was at the a calmness in me. She told me height of her transition. “When ‘I knew you were tortured but the [TV network] cricket rights I thought it was a creative and all the realignment thing and the writing and the happened I missed out, for high intellect was part of it, whatever reason, and that has but I can see now, you were left an emotional gap in my life. always wrestling with life’.” I picked up a bat when I was When Cate looks in the five, I played my first umpired mirror today she says, “I see cricket match in 1966 at the age of ten, For many, Cate is brave and the best version of me. It just feels so and the game’s been there as this huge inspirational but that’s not how she natural. I am comfortable in my skin. component, either watching or playing, sees it. “I don’t think I had to be I really am.” for 50-odd years. To be let go without particularly brave to do what I did. And for these autumn years ahead explanation or context, it hurt.” I had to be selfish in the end. I had to Cate has big plans. She was honoured But Cate is a survivor “and I’m still decide that I would either live or die on to become an ambassador for ‘Flesh here” she says. “I do have an inner life, these terms and that involved hurting After Fifty’, a campaign for body image a belief in God and a higher power and people who were close to me. Most of for women over 50. “I’m also trying to I pray and I meditate and I endure, I the people I harmed have forgiven me requalify as a lawyer. I’ve embarked think. Challenges are part of our life. but I’ve never forgiven myself.” on legal careers more than once,” she Pain has a transformative spiritual Cate is talking not only about Tritia, explains. “It seems like a really late life purpose. I really believe that. So even at but about her family. “I certainly hurt thing but there’s no reason why later I the darkest times I’ve tried to cling on. my sister’s feelings deeply. And my couldn’t go to the bar as a mature age “I probably was clinging on to the nephews and barrister,” she quips. Indeed, cricket as it was the last thing that nieces who had Cate is excited to reveal that linked Malcolm to Catherine, the last a huge pedestal a week after we go to press, thing that really has been present on which I was she will be taking up a legal from my childhood to today, a spinal placed. I think role with a new employer. column through my life. I’ve chosen there was a A week after our interview to believe that losing my cricket role deep sense of Cate was persuaded by her has happened for a great mate, radio’s Alan Jones, reason. It’s such an to be the star guest at Anzac enormous honour to Day celebrations in his home be part of the national town of Acland, . game at that level but if “It was the most beautiful I believe in a God with experience,” Cate tells me a plan for my life, it’s afterwards. “It reminded almost as though that me of my childhood in rug was pulled to focus Above: Cate in Acland, and that I have me firmly on the more Queensland, with a real affinity for this sort of meaningful aspects of community leader life. People were saying ‘why Tanya Platt for Anzac my life, that maybe it’s Day celebrations. Left: don’t you come back and live time to put the bat with Amanda Taylor. here?’ And do you know and ball away.” what? I just might.” AWW PERMISSION. WITH USED AND SUPPLIED PHOTOGRAPHS

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