Learning to heal – gender

• Talk about Healthy Healing Hubs project of the Guild of Health and St. Raphael and how Nicky first connected with the GoHealth community. 
• Gillian shares her honest discomfort about the conversation and fear of saying the wrong thing. 
• Nicky clarifies that we approach the topic of transgender first and foremost as being humans together. 
• Nicky shares something of her experiences growing up not knowing what Transgender was. 
• Nicky describes the deconstruction journey she and her family went on. 
• Identity is something at the core when the outer shell is removed. 
• Contemplative spirituality as a means of coming back to the original self. 
• Nicky describes the journey she went on before identifying as Transgender and how her family reacted to her transition.  
• Gillian and Nicky describe the significance of names and the importance of names in the process of transition. 
• Challenges of medical waiting lists for someone wanting to transition. 
• The terror of transition at the beginning. And the continual fear of being called out in public places. 
• The Equality Act of 2010 means it is unlawful to discriminate against transgender people. 
• Nicky explains why people transition and the different forms of transition. 
• Gillian and Nicky reflect on the incredible experience of community that connected on WhatsApp when Nicky journeyed through gender reconstruction or gender confirmation surgery.  
• Complications from surgery. 
• God’s presence throughout each stage of the transition journey. 
• Prayers of the Guild of Health and St. Raphael working in the back of an ambulance in November! 
• Nicky shares what she perspective she gained when walking along a beach in Bradwell, Essex. 
• Nicky shares some key questions and things that cisgender people might do to be sensitive to and inclusive of transgender experience. 

Links: 

Come on the Wilderness and Wellbeing retreat 

Join the GoHealth community 

Find out more about the Healthy Healing Hubs project

Transgender and faith resources:
Creating Sanctuary
Trans Health

Follow us on social media: @guildofhealth. 

I’m Gillian Straine and welcome to the GoHealth podcast.

So we’re in season two of podcast where we are exploring learning to heal. If you haven’t already done so, please rate and subscribe podcast. Why don’t do it right now? Because this helps people to find us. And this is especially important because I’ve got a super exciting announcement to make at the end of this episode. So keep listening. I really don’t think you want to miss it.

So in this episode, I’m delighted to have been chatting with Nicky Burr. Nicky is a member of the GoHealth Community and an active member of her church in Norwich. Her day job is as Associate Director at Ernst Young and she’s been supporting the development of the The Healthy Healing Hub Project, which is how we work with churches at the Guild, from a business and project management point of view and we’ve become friends. Like with all episodes of the GoHealth Podcast we don’t shy away from honest discussion about what is really going on for people. And in this episode we are chatting about gender and human identity. And I’m still reflecting on the profound healing journey that Nicky’s on. It is one of those that has stayed with me, and I keep thinking about it.

Now, listen, if gender and faith and human identity is a tricky subject for you, please, please do keep listening. Let’s be honest. It’s a complicated issue, it’s a political issue, but one that we really should be trying to engage with as Christians, living honestly and faithfully in the world. So we’re chatting about her journey and her faith. I ask her a pile of really tricky questions and probably some stupid ones too and Nicky is a fine, fine person to learn from and I’m honoured to call her a friend. Right. OK. See what you think. On with the episode.

[MUSIC]

Gillian: So, Nicky, welcome to the GoHealth podcast. I have to say I am absolutely thrilled and touched and honoured that you are giving us your time. At the end of I’ve just learned a very busy week that hasn’t ended yet, to have this conversation. And so welcome, welcome to the GoHealth podcast.

Nicky: Thank you. And I’m feeling just really privileged to be able to share with you and spend this time, so thank you. 

Gillian: Nicky, tell us a little bit about who you are, where you where you’re chatting to us from and maybe a bit about your work. Give us some context to who you are.

Nicky: So thanks Gillian. Yeah, I’m I’m living in Norwich, which is where I’m working from today. Mostly work from home, although I work for Ernst and Young, one of the big, bad audit companies in the city, been with them for about 11 years now. And I work with data, which might seem really confusing to a lot of people, but basically helps us to get information from our clients in and process it in a way that we can then help them with their audits and figure out their tax and stuff like that. So yeah, it’s quite, it’s quite an interesting job. it’s never the same each day. So, but it’s been a it’s been a busy week, lots of lots of meetings, lots of lots of people to meet from across the world which is also one of the most interesting things.

Gillian: Yeah, absolutely, that word audit and my stomach just sinks, I think anyone who runs a business or does anything like that, ‘the auditors are coming’. I know it’s a really positive thing but I take my hat off to anyone who can do that kind of analysis. The reason…that actually the reason that we connected, I don’t want to be really artificial about this, as well because actually you’ve…I’ve known you and I can, I count you as a friend as well. We’ve known each other for quite a few years through the Guild, so I knew initially I can’t even remember…You came to one of the courses and or one of the events, and then you helped us with some business planning as well. So you’ve been part of the Guild for a number of years, haven’t you?

Nicky: I first came I think it was, you had an AGM in Birmingham and it was the beginning of when we were talking about Health Healing Hubs and you know, it was just a concept and it was on the website. We had a bit of information about it and at that point it got my attention thinking, I want to more about this. So I turned up in Birmingham when we had the day there and just really we just really connected at that, I think, we were really excited about the vision, about the opportunity for us to just reimagine the way that we can kind of minister to people in that whole area of health through the local church, not just traditional praying, not just traditional kind of medical intervention, but also sort of the possibilities of when we combine them.

Gillian: It’s really recognising the wisdom that we all have in this area. We’re all children of God, all have calling to flourish. We’ve all got experiences. And in this podcast, what I hope we’re talking about is your experience as a transgender woman. Now, before we start, I mean, transgender is in the newspaper so often, it’s a political subject. The church are getting involved. There’s a lot of fear and anxiety about about this whole area of gender. And I guess the start I want to say I’m a bit anxious about this conversation. You know, I identify as a Cis woman for..and that is that I live and move and have my being as the gender I have from birth. But for I think for many of our listeners, there is anxiety and confusion about it. So I wonder if you can start by helping me feel a bit more comfortable, helping me feel a bit more comfortable and maybe could you help us with some of the terms as well? And I also want to say, Nicky, tell me when I get it wrong, tell me. I think we know each other well enough now, I won’t be offended and it’s for the good, right? So for all, for everyone out there who feels anxious about the subject, I’m there with you too. And I want to work with this with you and learn from your story.

Nicky: Thanks, Gillian. And I think the first thing to say is actually, don’t worry about getting it wrong. And I think, you know, for us as friends in particular, you know, I know where you’re coming from. And actually, I know we’re, in a number of people I meet every day, where they’re coming from. And actually, we’re about living life. We’re about doing the things we do. We’re about having conversations about health, healing, flourishing, what’s in the news, what we’re having for dinner and to, you know, to to a great degree the fact that I’m Trans is kind of irrelevant because, you know, we’re we’re people, we’re human beings. And I think one of the things I’ve learned over, you know, quite a while is that actually when we work together, when we live together, when we see each other as human, when we meet each other, then actually a lot of the issues, a lot of the questions, a lot of the tension goes away. Because we’re connecting at the level of being people. We’ve got enough shared experience, we’ve got enough shared stuff that’s happening. So for me, as transgender woman, basically means I identify as a, as a woman, that’s how I live my life. There came a point. So I was born male, I have, I still have a male birth certificate. In fact, I lived, you know, for 48 years trying to trying to live as a guy, I suppose. Not doing a particularly good job of that in places. You know at various points in my life, recognising that actually there was a difference in how I felt inside relative to the role I was playing that person in society that I was projecting and trying to conform with.

Gillian:  And how early do you think…do you have like…’well, I remember at my fourth birthday party…’ Can you pinpoint it or is it just something that’s always been there?

Nicky:  So I can remember as a, as a small child. So so you know, my my early fifties now. So I grew up in the kind of seventies and eighties and at that time, you know, fairly traditional household and, you know, kind of we went to church and stuff like that. I was in a Church of England school. I think what I noticed is that actually, you know, I, I suppose straight up I wanted to be a girl, you know, I saw girls around me and I was, I was jealous, I was envious. I wanted to dress up, wanted to wear pretty clothes, stuff like that. And the trouble with that at the time was it wasn’t really, there wasn’t really a name for it. You had, you know, the, the, the newspapers were kind of occasionally talking quite sensationally, I suppose, as they do now, you know, about sex change or something like that. But the word Transgender wasn’t even in our vocabulary. I had nothing to associate it with. So frankly, I just felt weird. I felt as if I was some kind of freak. I felt shame. I just thought, well, there’s something wrong about me. I just kind of pushed it down, buried it. To be honest with you, that’s how I lived most of my life. It’s easy to get into stereotypes, and I think there’s probably one of the things we’ll talk about a bit as we we get sort of further into the conversation is that, you know, we’re very good as a society at stereotyping and putting things in buckets. You know, sometimes we we think, you know, kind of this is male, this is female. We’re getting a bit better at it nowadays. You know, there was the girls section in the toy shop, the boys section in the toy shop, the pink, the blue. And that went through with my schooling when I was in secondary school. You had the option, everybody had the option to do woodwork, metalwork, graphic design or to do cooking, sewing and, you know, they called it home economics and stuff like that. I was you know, I seem to remember being kind of singled out as a bit of a sissy or something before even that. So I was terrified of going into the group that I wanted to be in, because I enjoy..you know, I’d been in the cubs and won prizes for baking and stuff, and again, it sounds very stereotypical and it’s, it’s kind of, you know, just what it was. That’s the stuff I enjoyed doing with my mum. You know, I couldn’t saw anything straight frankly when it came to the other side of things, but I went in the other group because I was terrified of being the only boy, quote, at that point who was in the other group. And you know, I did a terrible job of it to be honest. Then that continued really right up until, you know, I was say in my forties, I think I became quite good through life at playing a role and I was in quite a conservative church for a lot of that time. Again, we know how very well to fit in and to survive in something. We get to understand the rules. You know, this is this is kind of what’s expected. This is how I am, stuff and I was quite good at it. I was kind of a leader in that situation. Got married, had four children who I love very much. They’re kind of adult now. We got to the stage when they got to their late teenage years, I suppose, where they were having some real questions and it’s quite difficult when you’re kind of in a leadership role in a church. And then the children that you’ve brought up in that situation, you know, have kind of got questions that don’t want to go the way that you want to, and then particularly you’ve got a demanding job and then the rest of your life’s filled with church, actually, where’s the time that you have for them? So we started to we started to think, we started questioning ourselves. And what happened is actually we ended up leaving that church, and in doing so with questions, with perhaps you know, kind of disagreement and various things, all of that family unit that we had because the relationships we had in that church were very close, kind of you know, fell away and suddenly felt quite alone.

Gillian:  Well, sort of questions, you know, in broad terms, brought you as a family to the point where you wanted to leave? And were they tied up with your identity issues? I don’t mean issues in a pejorative way, but was it part of those questions?

Nicky: So at that time, no, I don’t think my gender was particularly a question in, in that I think they were questions around belief, questions about freedom, questions about, questions about God, I suppose. Perhaps the expectations that we placed on ourselves and others, actually what it meant to believe, what it meant to be saved and really what happened for me at that point, I would describe it as it was kind of taking some scaffolding away and seeing what still stood up because when you’ve been in a very kind of intense environment in that way, there’s a lot of activity that…you’ve got, you know, some really really good guardrails in there in terms of where you’re going. Then actually that comes away and suddenly, well, where are we?

Gillian:  How do you stand up? Cause the term for that, is often used, is deconstruction as well, is that a helpful term for you in terms of thinking about that process, the taking apart and bits falling down and having to be rebuilt again?

Nicky:  Yeah, well, if I if I’m honest, I mean, it was for me, it was about ten years ago this was happening. So I kind of feel that we invented the term. It was kind of…before it got fashionable.

[LAUGHTER]

What happened for me out of that was that when you get to an event like that, which is, you know, quite traumatic really, you know, it does unsettle you, the things that you your outer shell, if you can call it that, kind of falls away. And I suppose I’ve been thinking about how to try and explain that. And perhaps one of the things that’s been helpful to me is, you know, kind of start to look a sort of contemplative spirituality. Think about some of the teachings of Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating, there is very much this kind of idea of the fact that, you know, we have something essentially good in us of God. That’s each one of us, as we grow up as we start to navigate our way into society, as we start to take on a role, you know, act in different situations, we start to build a shell around that and I think they often term it as kind of our false self or something. So this is the image that we project. It’s the thing that actually is our defense mechanism that we use to find our way through society. For me, I think part of that deconstruction process was actually, I’d got a big shell on and actually part of that was getting chipped away, broken away, and what was inside was able to start kind of coming through that. And I see my identity as a as a woman, as a trans person is the fact that you know, that’s at my core. I know there’s people who suggest, you know, kind of…talking about identity these days is quite fashionable. And I think one of the accusations levelled against, particularly people who are younger and, you know, kind of in their teens and stuff and exploring their world, exploring who they are, one of the things is that they like labels because they’d like to differentiate themselves with things. And so sometimes when somebody comes out as you know, kind of trans, when they when they’re in the younger years, they say, oh, it’s just a phase, or you’re just kind of experimenting or stuff like that. And the implication of that is that actually there’s something that they’re wearing on the outside rather than something that’s formed far more, far more fundamental at the core. You know, identity is who we are inside. And so actually process of contemplative spirituality, which is something I find incredibly attractive is the fact that, you know, as we rest with God and as we kind of, the process of centering prayer, which is one of the practices of that, is, you know, it’s about being centered. It’s actually coming back to this original self, this whole self of internally… we kind of come through that kind of of rediscovery, if you will.

Gillian: Because it’s a bit like as you’re talking and we’ve used the word deconstruction, which always seems quite a violent kind of…like bash down the building, get out of here kind of thing. And you’re talking about playing a role. What was in my head was masks, and we all put on different masks all the time, depending what role we’re in. You know, if I’m, you know, if I, you know, if you’re being very professional, you have a different mask than when you’re at home, is it sort of that writ large? I think in terms of gender, that you have to play a role or wear a mask you were always wearing. You looked like…you didn’t look like you felt inside, almost in a way. So it’s the metaphor around mask and taking off mask as revealing our true self like the contemplatives talk about. Is that something that resonates, I wonder?

Nicky: I think it does, I think for most of my life, bearing in mind, you know, for for most of my life, I would say after I’d pushed things down at the beginning, you know, it was often oblivious to it. I was just so, you know, kind of so into the role I was in. It was, it felt more structural than something I just kind of wore in front of my face, so to speak.

Gillian: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Was there a moment where you’re like, right, I need to start addressing this issue for me around gender and how does that feel, did that feel scary or or like a relief if you’ve been hiding it all these years, playing a role all these years, and suddenly you’re in this cascade moment where things are falling apart, is that as a scary, oh, crap, this is, this is the next thing if I’m going to stay true to all this, or is it a joyful… finally I can…dot, dot, dot, or is it more complicated?

Nicky: When I first realised, kind of something was was happening there, it kind of was something that was just gradually starting to emerge as it was perhaps a sensation, a thought. I suppose it gave way to a question and that question, first of all, am I Trans? Because just as just as I was when I was a child, my experience was characterised by shame. I was really ashamed of how I felt, that I was would even think this, you know. And a man in the late forties wanting to, you know, even buy a pair of leggings to slob around in in a hotel room in New York. It was hugely unsettling and felt hugely shameful. The thing that kind of a lot people need to realise about trans people is that, you know, we talk about transphobia and kind of, by transphobia, what we mean is, you know, a fear or a negativity towards trans people. In a lot of cases, the biggest transphobes are actually trans people themselves. And we we talk about actually this whole thing of getting past ourselves because you’re asking the question and you’re thinking, I’m so ashamed of how I’m feeling. I’m so ashamed of who I am. So to actually get to that point of internally accepting who we are, it’s a really big deal. You know, for me, it took a lot of, a lot of hard searching, a lot of soul searching, and then, you know, even some counselling before I could even get to that stage of internally, like, yes, I am transgender. Being able to say that with a sense of certainty. And that’s even before any kind of transition, that’s just getting to that point internally of saying this is who I am. You know, we had, you know, a couple of our children, they were kind of struggling with mental health and stuff like that. And, you know, I remember one of the professionals that was involved with them, you know, who we were honest with them about where we were as a family, about where I was feeling and everything, and the fact that I was trying to hold this in because of other stuff that was going around and they said to me, look, you just got to get on with this because you’re no use to them actually, unless you can be yourself. And that kind of came with, you know, kind of a degree of permission around it, which, you know, I think I needed at that stage and a recognition that, you know, this was real, this wasn’t something I was making up. This wasn’t something that was a, was a kind of pretence, it wasn’t weird, actually, it was real. And there was help to be had in terms of working through it.

Gillian:  Can you tell us a little… I mean we’ve, Nicky, we are already into the good stuff. I mean, theology and, you know, huge things on identity and I want to know, I’m curious about your wife and your family. I’m curious about your friends, how they reacted and work. I’m curious, you know, about that experience and what that was like for you?

Nicky:  So so in in respect to family, my wife who’s, you know, now now my ex-wife for a number of reasons, we are no longer together as a couple, although we still remain really good friends and keep in touch. She’s actually been incredibly supportive. But as you’d expect, you know, as a woman, you know, the person that she spent twenty odd years of her life married to, now realising they’re somebody else is an immense challenge. It’s been you know, that’s been a journey for both of us. You know, she’s been incredible really throughout that process and being able to be supportive of me being who I need to be without, you know, actually putting her second in that respect. And the rest of the family have been, you know, very, very supportive too, particularly the children who’ve been…as I say, I talk about them as children, they’re all you know, in their twenties. But I’m still dad. They still address cards, dad, they still call me dad when the washing machine is broken, like it was earlier, you know, kind of that’s who I am to them. And that’s important because for me actually, you know, kind of there is this you know, there is this consistency. There are many trans people who feel that because thinking about who they were is so painful and so difficult that actually they feel that they can’t look back in that way. It’s one thing that I think, you know, we really need to respect and understand is that, you know, everybody’s narrative is different. Everybody’s story is different. For me, I can kind of follow the right the way through. And actually, if I transitioned earlier in life, maybe I would have the wonderful family I have, and interestingly enough, if I had transitioned earlier, would I even have the job I have now? Because white male privilege is quite a currency in our industry as it is in many others.

Gillian: Gosh, yeah,  I’d never thought of that. Yes, of course. Yeah. So, Nick, I’m really curious about transition, the word and the experience and perhaps we could get into this. And I’ve, you’ve already educated me so much around transition is not just surgery, it is much wider. So I’d love to get into that. And talk about the rest of your journey, but let’s kick it off by talking about names and why names are are so important. I mean, it sounds like a silly question, of course, names are important, but from your experience, tell me about names.

Nicky: I think names are fundamental to our identity. Think about when we are named as a child, actually, I’m thinking about when we read in Genesis when God was walking in the garden and, you know, he called Adam by name, ‘Adam, where are you?’ There’s something fundamental to who we are. And I think it wraps up so much more than just the label. Often when we choose our children’s names, we try and think in great detail, we try to imagine who they might be and what that name might kind of encapsulate. And I guess that’s the same for, for us in, in lots of ways. So actually, you address me by my name when anyone addresses me by a name there’s something actually I feel quite, quite important and kind of almost sacred about that, really, because it gets to the heart of who I am rather than, you know, kind of just any old kind of, any old thing.

Gillian: Yeah and that bit from the Bible, ‘I have called you by name, you are mine.’

Nicky: Right. Yeah. That is really, yeah, it’s a, it’s kind of a deep thing. And so actually, yeah, that part of transition was, was really important. It’s funny, it’s how…so so society gets so caught up with you know, the media and that, when we talk about, you know, people transitioning and, and it’s all about the surgery isn’t it? Because that’s the thing that is the, you know, kind of titillating, you know, kind of tabloid fodder. And it’s funny because when I first transitioned, as most people do, you know, you’re actually the only transition you’re doing is effectively a social transition. So, you know, when I when I kind of got to say, all right, we’re you know, we’re going for this where we’re transitioning, you know, the first act was I walked, well through the office I was in, because for various reasons, I kind of first transitioned in work. You know, I walked through the office in a skirt and my, my employer’s incredibly supportive, actually. And, you know, we find a lot of employers, particularly in the corporate world, are so, so switched on to what we term as diversity. and more recently, equity for people, because they realise that actually when people are able to come to work and be themselves, they make more money out of them.

Gillian:  Yeah, they’re more productive. Yeah.

Nicky: It follows and actually I had a huge amount of support from the team at work. And so we got everything changed on system and everything came in and that to me was was kind of in a sense, transitioned. I came in as Nicky, I came in with different pronouns, I came in dressed differently, I used a different bathroom, and that was it. Because the order of things is, whilst there is, you know, obviously there are things that we can do to, to get help in terms of changing our physical bodies, in terms of, you know, kind of getting hair removed. I was really hairy prior to transition I ended up having to get laser treatment all the way over.

Gillian: That must have been expensive and painful!

Nicky: It was expensive and you know, kind of took a while. Generally speaking, to get help from the medical profession, even privately, pretty much, you know, you need to be enroled for a period of time. So here’s one of the great, you know, kind of challenges, really, as somebody who’s trans. Now, I’m, you know, I’m not that tall, you know, kind of my my job being not particularly manual means that, you know, I I’m certainly, when I started to transition would have said I was a hugely convincing woman, but I think I had an easily easier job what we term as passing than, you know, somebody I knew who was ten years older, taller than I was and have been an electrician. That initial stage of transition is is terrifying actually if you’re in the street or in a kind of a shopping centre or something like that, you know, particularly in the current climate where there seems to be a lot more attention being paid to these ‘these evil trans people’ who are around who are about to pounce on others and, you know, kind of assault them and stuff because of, you know, because obviously all of the trouble that we’ve gone to to to be ourselves is, you know, the easy way to put ourselves into women’s spaces to to to tackle…

Gillian: What you describe, you’ve been very light hearted, but it sounds extremely frightening. Your work sounds fantastic. But if you’re worried about getting attacked, going to a shopping centre, you just don’t know. I mean, none of us know, really. But if you’re in a state of transition and you’re anxious about your appearance and you’re not sure what’s going to happen, did you have situations where you felt under threat.

Nicky: I would say I always feel fearful if I’m in a public place going into the bathroom. You know, we have, you know, there’s places that they’ll put stickers around and stuff like that. But the, the fear of getting, the fear of getting challenged or called out and, you know, you get to…it’s funny, I mean, you get to walk around and develop a bit of tunnel vision because you’re always aware of the eyes either side of you just kind of oh, and they’re kind of…there’s one of those there and that kind of thing. And it’s, you know, kind of it’s one of those things you get to live with a lot of just into those spaces is, is, is particularly and you know, I was I’ve been since transitioning I’ve been refused access to, you know, maybe changing rooms in shops to try things on which, you know, it’s it’s difficult, it’s difficult.

Gillian: And things are not getting any easier from a political point of view, are they?

Nicky: They’re not, it seems that there is, you know, a very vocal minority who are intent on kind of rolling back some of the sort of the measures to enable us to be able to live a normal life, what a lot people don’t realise is that, you know, under the Equality Act of 2010, you know, gender identity is a protected characteristic. What that means is actually that it’s unlawful to discriminate against us.And there are there are provisions in the act around, you know, kind of what you might term as you know well I think what they term as single sex basis which allows for some latitude and discretion. But I think those are getting challenged more by some people who are…I kind of feel that they’re a bit more obsessed about it than we are really, which is, you know, kind of rather sad.

Gillian: And if you can just go back for, yeah you know, I just want to continue exploring the transition thing because I think it’s so fascinating because as a cis woman, you know, I just, you know, is multiple transitions, isn’t it really?

Nicky: Yeah. And I think just to come back to this idea that, you know, kind of every trans person’s experience is different, I suppose just to explain why we do it is probably helpful. You know, why didn’t I just stay as a man and wear a dress and, you know, stuff and, you know, some people do. Perhaps experience of, of being trans, you know, kind of why the question comes around is that actually we feel a huge discomfort about who we are and the role we’re living in relative to, you know, kind of our bodies and our social situation, how we feel inside differs and that causes a kind of dissonance. And the the medical term that used to describe that is something called gender dysphoria. And there’s been a, you know, a lot of sort of peer reviewed research that’s been done into this. The overwhelming view of the medical profession globally is that actually transition is the most effective means of being able to treat this. So what that does actually that’s that saves a huge amount of problems for trans people who often result in having quite severe depression. You know, just imagine not being able to even look at part of your anatomy because of the feeling that gives you or just not being able to be yourself, you know, and you’re hiding something constantly – it’s a huge stress. And I think unfortunately, there’s a number of trans people who, you know, have taken their own lives as a result. So what Transition tries to do is just to close that gap between how we feel inside and how we present ourselves and how we live and how we look. It’s really simply just what it’s about. And so for some people, you know, it can be simple as, you know, kind of just changing the role, maybe dressing differently. It depends on, you know, because we’re talking very much, you know, for me as somebody who would identify as, as a woman and has transitioned completely from, you know, one gender binary to the other. But, you know, let’s not forget, there are a number of people who would also identify as trans who would be, you know, perhaps what they would describe themselves as non-binary or or gender queer. And that means that they don’t kind of fully identify, but they know, you know, and I think they would say that I am not a woman or I am not a man. I am somewhere in between. And they feel similar kind of pain, I suppose, in, in terms of that. So transition then can take a variety of forms it’s you know, for most people it’s changing, you know, the name – changing their gender role in society with all the documentation that goes with that and then, you know, varying degrees of medical intervention. So hormone therapy, for example, is, is something which can make a huge difference. My, you know, kind of my facial features have softened, my skin softened, kind of the shape of my body has changed through using those, but ultimately also has a feeling of how I am inside. I feel at more rest. And curiously, one of the things that I found changed massively for me was that I had huge social anxiety prior to transition you know, I’d be in meetings with senior stakeholders and stuff like that. And I, you know, kind of practically fall apart. But actually after transition, my confidence has increased massively. And I probably would have been able to do this in the way that I am before.

Gillian: That’s so fascinating. Once you, once your external appearance or you were able to live a life more present to you, felt your confidence to live your life…

Nicky: Changed massively. So and of course, for some people, there are there are elements of transition that they can’t do for medical reasons. For me, they the most recent element of transition and it’s kind of been a number of years after I initially socially transitioned just because of the huge waiting times. I don’t know whether people realise that actually the the gender the gender clinic system in the UK for trans people is so, so broken at the moment. That, you know, there’s a statutory waiting time that’s supposed to be first appointment, which is supposed to be 18 weeks when I was referred at the end of 2014 it took two years to get my first appointment and another two years before I saw the doctor. It’s now far longer than that because actually people being added to the waiting list are just adding, being added far more quickly than they can be cleared. So it was only actually with those waiting times and then with you know, kind of some of the disruption to hospitals from COVID and such that I ended up getting surgery for what we refer to as gender reconstruction or gender confirmation surgery, which I had last October.

Gillian: And I felt I journey with you on this. This is so, Nicky, you formed a WhatsApp prayer group, didn’t you, to accompany you through the surgery. And, and I was part of it. What made you want to have a group of people follow, follow your experience on WhatsApp and be praying for you? Because I have to say it’s, I really want to get into this as well, but in the podcast and discuss this WhatsApp group. So if I could just explain to people who are listening how many were on the group, there seemed loads.

Nicky: I had about 30 or so people on that.

Gillian: 30 people and our job was to pray for you. We just prayed and then you shared the experience with us and we could pray for you. That’s kind of that would be the headline. I think that was what it was about. Yeah, but I have to say it’s been one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life, because I hadn’t really engaged properly with what that, what transitioning gender meant surgically, as well, so I learned a lot about it. I Googled it and had a look up because I realised I knew nothing about it, really, not really what you were going through. And then I felt… you shared your experience, I was just, I was just looking back there on the WhatsApp group. Still got it, you know, the first sort of post was, I’m getting on the bus. I pray that I get there, OK? And that first hit me because of course, that’s different. If, you know, if you’re Nicky, that’s a scary thing to do. Get on a public bus in COVID times as well. So I felt like we walked with you this entire journey. Why did you decide to, to do this?

Nicky: So to me, it seemed a really obvious thing to to do, you know, kind of with, with, with tech and mobile and stuff and actually recognising that it’s really quite, you know, it’s really quite involved. There’s quite a long list of risks that are associated with the procedure like this, basically where it is and I suppose to, to, to women who are, you know, kind of listening, you know, it’s it’s not too far different in terms of recovery time to say hysterectomy – it’s that level of kind of surgery. So, you know, I had some trepidation about it. I was just aware that actually it’s something which is not guaranteed an easy ride. It’s still important to me, because actually for me as it were, bringing that part of my body into line with how I felt is really important, not least to be able to go swimming or something because, you know, again, just that whole safety thing of just feeling that actually I’m not going to get called out quite so easily. So I had a number of people from church who, you know, and family and friends, you know, from, again, quite a broad spectrum of people who wanted to keep in touch. I was just aware logistically, actually it would be quite difficult to keep everyone in touch or somebody would have to then message out loads of stuff because I wasn’t exactly going to, you know, kind of text 30 people from the recovery room. So, so it kind of made sense. And WhatsApp gave us the opportunity to do that in quite a, you know, quite an easy way. What I suppose was the real delight in that for me, though, was actually the amount of encouragement and support I was getting in the other direction. You know, it wasn’t just me sending out messages ‘can you pray for this, can you pray for that?’ Actually it was a lot of people knowing that they were with me in this. You know, it was like taking 30 people into the hospital and you know, I because of COVID you know you’re saying I was.. that the issue with the bus was  actually I didn’t want to catch COVID between getting there and then self-isolating for two days and then getting into the hospital because you know our two bus rides one from Norwich to London, then the other one from London to Brighton, you know I did not want to be, you know, catching anything on the way that would then prevent me from having this surgery that I’d waited so long for.

Gillian: And not only that there was a two way thing in that you were sending out prayers and we were praying but actually, Nicky,  it felt to me anyway, I don’t know if you’ve talked to anyone else who’s part of that group. It felt like a genuine community. 

Nicky: Yes. 

Gillian: And I didn’t know a single other person in this group apart from you, but I felt really connected to them. And I felt that in a way, we were traveling…we were on that bus… because part of me, it was October so I was doing the school run, getting the dinner ready, part of me was thinking – has Nicky got there yet? And then praying.  And then…it was a really interesting experience. I felt like we were journeying with you in in this transition.

Nicky: Hmm. Yeah, it was. And I and I think that journey with me was, was the term we kind of identified as we were going through this. And it was a, it was, it was we were all together in this. And I was immensely, you know, I felt immensely humbled actually, to, to have, you, or everybody with me in this and particularly at some, you know, some some difficult times. You know, we knew there was a, you know, kind of slight complication that kind of occurred in all that. The surgery wasn’t quite straightforward as we as we’d hoped. But it was, you know, it was actually after the procedure, that things got a little interesting. So it was a couple of weeks after, wasn’t it, when I was kind of laying there, minding my own business and, you know, and suddenly I get this bleed and within the space, well, it just gushed and to be honest with you, it’s it’s the first time I think I’ve been just, you know, aware of the thought that actually I could die here. Because it was just so…now I was fortunate to be staying with some friends who were helping to support me in recovery. And their lodger who’s who happened to be there that evening is a nurse and was just able to get some pressure on that. Probably sort of most people being aware of interest in health of the pressure on the ambulance service at the moment. You know, I was on the phone to the ambulance service while I was trying to kind of get get somebody and you know, they were saying it could take an hour or something. I thought, well, I’m not going to be here in an hour, but in under 10 minutes, this ambulance crew arrives just as I was about to pass out. They just happened to be coming on shift just round the corner, literally. It’s funny how, you know, I felt I was being taken care of and actually thinking of that, journeying through kind of almost outside or above the WhatsApp group is just that sense of God in that process. It’s funny, isn’t it, when you’re doing something which feels quite, you know, here I am changing my body to different to how it was created. How could God be in this you know? Perhaps we can get to, you know, God kind of that journeying  through the whole transition process really. But specifically, at this stage, it just felt that God was really with me in the whole thing, from the run up to it, from the lead up to it. And I had some conversations with my spiritual director before it just, you know, kind of thinking about it as a as ,a as a journey, as a thing, and then just knowing God’s presence and God’s peace through it.

Gillian: And when things went a bit hairy there in the recovery, when you were on that, in the ambulance going to hospital, did you have that same sense that God was with you then?

Nicky: I did. The issue with most of these you know, kind of most of these Accident and Emergency departments at the moment  being so stretched with the load of with COVID and everything else was you know, we were stuck out there for about half an hour. You know, so there was me with a with a drip on, but having lost, as it turns out, about three pints of blood, you know, kind of with these paramedics in the back of the van. And in November, and so we were on WhatsApp to the group and yeah, you said, well, would you like me to pray with you? Well I said, actually, yes, please. So it was quite. it was quite surreal almost that there was there was me on a trolley in the back of an ambulance with these two paramedics kind of, you know, sort of fidgeting while they were waiting to get into A&E and we were, we were praying. And one of the things specifically praying was about, you know, that I’d get let in, I’d actually get a bay in A&E. And so, you know, towards the end of the prayer, somebody comes over to the ambulance saying ‘right, your turn now’. And the paramedic beside me is going ‘Oh that worked didn’t it!’

Gillian: Oh waow, really, gosh, there you are, the prayers of the Guild work.

Nicky: Absolutely. So that the hospital, the local hospital were brilliant. It wasn’t the same hospital I’d had the surgery. I’d had it in Brighton and then you know I’m in Norwich, so that’s quite some distance away. It would have been impossible for me to to go there. Through that experience, it was, you know, what had complicated things in the surgery, you know kind of came to came to fruition I suppose and there was an issue with the kind of result, I suppose, which is, you know, not where I wanted it to be, to be to be truthful and my overriding sense through that process, through that time was that sense of resting in God. And trust can be a very trite word, can’t it – ‘Oh you’ve just got a trust in God and stuff.’ But actually there was that sense of ‘I have nothing left of me here to do, other than just throw myself on you God, because that’s all I have. You’re all I have.’

Gillian: It’s striking that the power of you talking about the peace, almost like your journey into greater and greater sense of peace because you’re aligning how you feel about your body with how you feel about yourself and what I’m struck by listening to the story as a real outsider and a newbie, how that contrasts with, if you don’t mind me saying this, is the violence almost, violence is maybe is not the right word, but, you know, this is a huge operation. It was really dangerous. Nicky. I thought I was praying, I thought I was giving you last rites. I thought this is what’s happening, because all I heard was significant bleed and ambulance. And I was thinking, I need to say the right things in this moment because I thought you were going to die. So to put yourself through this is in stark contrast to the peace you described, which makes me, only makes me come to the conclusion that anyone who says people who do this because they want to get into female changing rooms do not understand the experience of what, what you’ve been through, because the pressure and the bravery it takes is enormous because it’s highly risky.

Nicky: When I look back from where I was five years ago, pre-transition, you know, each step of the way as being significant and has been, you know, massive in its own way. But yet each step feels kind of gradual and natural. It is sometimes when you you know, when you climb up a mountain or something and then you look down and think ‘oh gosh’ it’s a long way down there.’ I can’t imagine another way. I wouldn’t have wanted to stay as I was. You know, I said said earlier that, you know, some trans people would have ended up sadly taking their lives. I would necessarily have suggested that I’d be there. But certainly I wouldn’t, I don’t think have they have the life I have now.

Gillian: You beautifully described this contemplative process of finding your real self among the false self image of getting out of playing a role and to being your true self. And have you got a sense now that you’re there, as far as anyone can decide of death and resurrection?

Nicky: Oh, goodness, no. You know, as many people in that tradition were saying, almost the the more, sort of the further we head into to this, actually, the less certain we are. But I think this is, this is the thing is, is that, again, thinking about, you know, kind of just I suppose thinking about faith and contemplative spirituality, is that the more we hang out with God, so to speak, actually the one we realise we’re we are so small. A couple of years ago, I went down to a place called Bradwell in, in Essex. And it has other things as well as a nuclear power station down there. It has quite a quite interesting kind of peninsula, quite a nice place actually to walk. On one of the beaches, it was full of tiny shells. So so it wasn’t sand it was tiny shells. And it was a time when I think I realised actually how small I am, because one of the, one of the things for me kind of, has been a real, a thing that’s kept me going faith wise over over the recent times is just the recognition that actually God loves us unconditionally, not because of anything smart we’ve done or not done or whatever, but because he made us. Julian of Norwich talks about, in The Showings you know, there’s this sort of vision that she had of like this thing like a hazelnut, she says God showed her well, you know, that was everything that he had made was represented in this small ball. She writes that he loves it and he sustains it, but he loves it because he made it. And we’re part of that. And this sense on this beach at this point, was actually a sense of I’m like one of those little shells, as are all of us. And actually, you know, in the overall scheme of things, it’s it’s it’s one of the things that blows my mind is the fact that God loves us so individually and yet we’re so small versus, you know, the whole of humanity, the whole of the world, everything like that. But we’re part of something so much bigger.

Gillian: And it seems, from what you’re saying, as you’re transitioning, is part of something that’s much bigger as well. This part, it sounds like a deeply spiritual process of finding that thing we hear about the Psalms, finding your innermost being. 

Nicky: Yeah.

Gillian: There’s something about the external and the way we’re living in the world is not matching. And the work has been recently part of a bigger bit of work, obviously. But the work recently has been finding an alignment between inmost and outmost so that you can carry on with the bigger journey, almost.

Nicky:  I think that’s right. It’s that, you know, kind of you know, that inner identity and there’s almost two intersecting journeys here. There’s the intersection of, you know, my transition in terms of fixing out how I’m kind of how I’m living in life in the world. And then parallel to that and crossing over that is this this journey of actually finding who I am inside as well and aligning more with that rather than this in a kind of shell that I would build around myself to try and protect myself.

Gillian: We ask this all the time in the GoHealth podcast, it’s a sort of a go to question, but it feels in this conversation the most pertinent time I’ve ever asked it. But what does healing mean to you? What’s the word healing mean to you or the process of healing? I know you’ve done our introduction to healing ministry course, so this is not a test because you can go on the course and find out what we teach. But you know, for you personally, given your story in the beautiful way you describe this journey, what does healing mean for you no, today at the point you’re at?

Nicky: You probably realise the answer to that question is not to be cured of being transgender. We, we spoke about Psalm 139 a moment ago and felt God’s creating us in our innermost being. And to me, that’s my, you know, that’s my experience. That’s my belief in who I am. And the reason I have a narrative over, you know, 52 years of being who I am that transcends life before Nicky and after is the fact that there is this unfolding story of God in my life that is consistent from the day I was conceived right through to now.

And actually there is a reason, I’ve got a number of questions that I have to ask when I when I finally arrive, for me healing is I think, it’s it’s around wholeness. I find the whole sense of Shalom in, you know, the Hebrew scriptures so fascinating and so attractive, because it’s a state. The fact is that I could know peace when I was on the trolley in the ambulance, I was already healed at that point because irrespective of how my physical body was that was my reality. With the disappointment over the surgery which, you know, was not you know, it’s not turned out completely how I want it. You know, I am still healed because I am well.

Gillian: I had a little moment when you said that. I mean, that’s so, that’s so profound when I do these podcasts I’m listening for the soundbite, and you know what – that was it -‘when I was in the ambulance and bleeding out, I was already healed’. Because that’s  faith, isn’t it? That’s the good news. I mean, I get so sick to the back teeth of, you know, the healing ministry is just about praying for miracles or has it worked? Or all the rest of it. But that’s the moment, you know, that’s what people don’t realise is the power of talking about the healing ministry. We have the potential to already be healed because we are in…we are connected with God. And in that moment of, you know, of actually mortal danger, you’re connected in with group of people, you were in a cold space in the October inside an ambulance in the UK, that’s not an easy place to be. But you were connected with a God who created the universe and had a sense of peace. It’s extraordinary. 

Can we as we come towards the end of the podcast, I wonder if you could give some advice or just talk to, you know, those who are cisgender, if that’s the right term, those for whom trans gender is something that makes them anxious because they’re like me at the beginning of the podcast, was a bit worried about getting it wrong. What questions should we be asking ourselves, or what should we be doing to support or advocate for those who identify gender in a different way?

Nicky: Thank you, and the first one I’m going to say – because we haven’t talked about this at all actually, is please ask pronouns and remember them – I’m she/her. For some people who they identify as non-binary, you know, they may prefer they/ them actually not just prefer, that’s how they identify, their pronouns, if you ask them, might be they/ them or something else. It’s kind of basic respect actually to be able to ask somebody that and recognise that that’s important enough to them for you to be able to remember those and use them. And also, you know, mistakes happen, occasionally we’ll misgender somebody, and I would say, well, don’t be too, too, too worried about it, don’t make such a big deal of this, apologise and move on. You know, coming back to the, the thing that for all of us, you know, we’re human beings and it’s to try to look past the stuff – and I think we all have so much as individuals to give to each other, it’s to try and get past the kind of what we might see as the unusual or the sensational and just to remember that we’re all people. If we’re struggling with empathy, if we’re struggling as to how to relate to somebody like us, it’s just to kind of think about, you know, think about a time when you were in a room and didn’t feel you belonged or in another situation, and you felt out of place. Because actually that’s kind of how it feels a lot of the time when we are not able to be ourselves, you know, it’s almost like we we don’t belong.

Gillian: I was struck recently by a quotation from Brené Brown that says ‘we’re only able to connect to others the degree to which we can connect to ourselves’ and you Nicky, and the people who’ve gone through a similar process, have done such work to bravely connect with who you are, then the question really, I think communities and churches should be asking is what can we learn from you actually about connecting to ourselves in order to do the work of God, which is to connect to other people as well?

Nicky, thank you so much for giving your time to the GoHealth podcast and being willing to share your story. The theory is, right you know, healing happens when we tell our stories and when we listen to the stories of others. And I felt hugely moved by listening to your story, learning more today. We’ve talked a number of times at learning more today about what you’ve been through, and my prayer is one of thankfulness that you’re a blessing to the GoHealth Community and to your church and to the human experience of muddling through life and trying to make heads or tails of it and being connected with God. So thank you so much for being here and talking with us.

Nicky:  Thank you. And thank you for having me. It’s been such a pleasure and I love talking, as we always do.

Gillian:  It was, again, another really moving conversation in this series, Learning to Heal. and I love how she honestly explores some of those tensions, the tensions around gender at the moment and the profound role of faith in her ongoing healing journey. 

Now, do you remember I mentioned an exciting announcement? Well, here it is. I’m so excited. We at the Guild, we’ve been cooking up something really special for you. Looking back over the last few years, we have really grown as an organisation, as we’ve been connecting online with more and more people, whether that’s through this podcast or our training that we do and our membership communities, our online community has grown and grown and grown. All of this has happened during the pandemic when we couldn’t actually meet in person. Well, all that is about to change. Are you ready? On the 16th to the 18th of September, 2022, we are inviting you to come along on our first ever gathering – the Wilderness and Wellbeing Retreat. Doesn’t that sound amazing? I could just go today I think, The Wilderness and Wellbeing Retreat in the Lake District in the north of England. So why, why this topic? Why this title? What are we going to be doing? It came from this reflection that many of us discovered wellbeing that comes from walking on our daily excursions during the lockdowns. Do you remember in 2020 and 2021, our daily walks were a revelation of the importance of nature, noticing things around us. Indeed, in our 2021 Denis Duncan lecture, Ruth Valerio noticed that somehow the beauty of the natural world absorbs our suffering, ah, which really hit us hard when we listened to it live.

We’ve been reflecting on it ever since because it’s true. So we wanted to combine all these ideas, the importance of walking, the importance of nature when it comes to healing and wellbeing. The GoHealth Community gathering, this wilderness and wellbeing retreat will give you time and space in a beautiful part of the country to reflect on health and healing and how some of that comes with nature and with the Christian faith. Why not book yourself some time to come to this gathering, to recharge, to reflect as we walk, talk and eat together. There’s going to be times of optional walks, time to engage in spiritual practices, either together or in solitude, and some great reflections on the power of nature and mountainous places to help us find healing. So there’s discounts for GoHealth community members. So pop on the website – Wendy will put the link in the show notes for the episode –  you’ll see there is a bit of a discount for GoHealth community members. And if you’re thinking of the retreat, it’s really well worth joining the GoHealth community, you’ll save a bit of money and you will also get a whole bunch of other stuff like free training events, community resources and things like that. So the Wilderness and Wellbeing Retreat 16 to the 18th of September in the Lake District. Check it out and we’d love to meet less gather together in person. You know our tag line in the GoHealth Community is Together We Flourish and we’re going to do it! We’re going to get together and we’re going to explore this topic together as we all continue our journey in learning to heal. OK, so that was the exciting announcement. 

And finally please rate and subscribe to the podcast, perhaps share it on your social media stream. This was a particularly interesting episode I think, we want as many people as possible to hear Nicky’s story. So in the meantime, God bless, let’s connect and chat. Let’s keep learning to heal because together we flourish.