Interview with Louise Hannon

Louise Hannon emerged as one of Ireland’s most visible transgender advocates at a moment when there were still remarkably few public voices speaking openly about trans life, equality, and recognition. Her story is inseparable from a long struggle to live honestly: after years of wrestling with her gender identity, she transitioned in 2007, chose the name Louise, and found herself confronting not only the deeply personal challenges of beginning a new life, but also the institutional barriers that followed her into the workplace. Her decision to challenge those barriers made her a landmark figure in Irish equality history. After First Direct Logistics required her to move between female and male identities at work, including asking her to revert to her male identity when dealing with clients, Louise brought a case before the Equality Tribunal. In 2011, the tribunal found discrimination on gender and disability grounds and awarded her compensation. She had deliberately given up her anonymity, hoping that speaking publicly would encourage employers to take transgender employees seriously and give other trans people the confidence to live openly.

 

But Louise’s activism reached beyond her own legal battle. She became involved with the Transgender Equality Network Ireland, served on its committee, and is its vice chair. She also spoke publicly about the need for legal gender recognition and challenged the ignorance and stereotypes surrounding transgender people in Irish society. In 2010, she addressed the question of why Ireland needed a Gender Recognition Act; in 2012, she condemned media portrayals that she believed encouraged ridicule and potentially violence against trans people. There is another, more creative side to Hannon’s story: she describes herself not only as an activist but also as a photographer, with particular enthusiasm for fashion and glamour photography. She traces that interest back to childhood, when a simple Kodak Box Brownie became a way of photographing the animals around her family home, and recalls that she wanted to pursue photography and fashion as a teenager. She is also working on an autobiography about the turbulent path that brought her to this point. Her public life grew out of a private struggle to stop living what she describes as a lie, and her willingness to turn a painful workplace experience into a public fight helps give visibility to people who had very few examples of themselves in Irish public life. Louise has become not simply a woman who won a significant discrimination case, but a persistent voice for dignity, recognition, and the right to be seen on one’s own terms.

 

Monika: Louise, it’s wonderful to have you here!

Louise: Hello Monika!

Monika: Before we go any further, how would you describe yourself?

Louise: I’ve been asked this kind of question before, but how do you describe yourself? Probably other people would describe me much better. I’m passionate about equality and justice where I see something which I feel is wrong, be that economically or physically wrong in my eyes. I tend to confront injustice. I was very much the same all my life, but it’s only in recent times that I have had, financially and in my private life, the spare time to do what I do.

 

Meeting President Higgins with TENI and
FLAC (Free Legal Aid Centre).

 

Monika: What first drew you to photography?

Louise: I was given a Box Brownie made by Kodak when I was eight years old. It was a simple camera in the shape of a box, and brown. Later ones became more of a gunmetal color. I used to take photos of my dogs and the odd cat that my mother kept at home on the farm. I wanted to do fashion and photography in my teens, but my family, I’m an only child, wouldn’t hear a word of it. They might have accepted the photography, but fashion for a boy was a big no-no. 

Monika: What kinds of photography interest you most: nature, portraits, or something else?

Louise: I do a variety of work, from fashion to glamour to events and some portraiture. I prefer the glamour and fashion side, as it allows me to be more creative.

I also do work that earns me a living but can be much more boring. I get bored easily and have always been that way. It has got me into trouble now and then as well, ha!

Monika: Are there any new projects keeping you busy right now?

Louise: I’m working on some glamour magazine shots right now, and I’m hoping that will lead to more work in that area.

I’m also writing an autobiography about my turbulent life and the mountains I’ve had to climb to get to this point. The national television station in Ireland, TV3, is making a documentary about me and three others, which is to be aired in the spring of 2014.

Monika: When did you transition, and was the process difficult? Did you have support from family or friends along the way?

Louise: I made the decision some fifteen years ago, after struggling with my gender identity since childhood. I could not go on living a lie. It was too much of a struggle for me to live in the gender that I was born into but had no affiliation towards.

I finally transitioned in March 2007, so it will be seven years next year. Family support was negligible. My parents are dead, and my children gave me no support. While they have no issue with my life now, they don’t have any long-term contact with me either. Everyone outside my family was very supportive.

Monika: Did you have any transgender role models, in Ireland or elsewhere, to look up to at the time?

Louise: No, there was no one in Ireland. In recent times, Dr. Lydia Foy has been a strong role model in the way she has withstood the establishment to fight for her rights, but we only knew of Lydia’s struggle in the years around 2006/7. When I took my decision, there was no one. I set up a Yahoo group in 2001, which for a long time was a focus for those seeking information, and then in 2007 I joined the TENI committee. In the early 2000s, there was very little information out there.

 

Reception for Anna Grodzka @ Dublin Pride.

 

Monika: Looking back, what was the hardest part of coming out?

Louise: Having to take the decision to take my employer to court for constructive dismissal in January 2008. That took a lot of strength.

Monika: Transgender women are subject to the terrible test of whether they pass as women or not. You’re a lovely woman yourself, but what about the ones who struggle every day to pass? What would you recommend to them?

Louise: Society is very cruel towards those who are in any way different. I’m lucky in that I’m small and fine-boned and have never really had any issues around being recognized as other than female. But there are those who do struggle, because the genes did not treat them well to be female when born as male.

Monika: What advice would you give to someone who finds that especially hard?

Louise: The only thing I can say is that you just have to be yourself. Treat others with respect and dignity, and behave with dignity yourself, and people will see the good in you and warm to you. There’s no point in taking offense at remarks made against you or any abuse that you receive.

Monika: How do you personally manage to brush off unkind remarks?

Louise: After all, it’s the abusive people who have the problem, not you. So I just ignore stuff like that and get on with my life. There are more important things than worrying about what people call you or say about you. Life is too short to worry about. My father told me a long time ago, “You die if you worry, you die if you don’t worry, so why worry?” It’s been the best advice I was ever given.

Monika: How would you describe the overall situation for transgender women in Irish society today?

Louise: Irish trans women are becoming more and more accepted. I’m involved with the Irish Labour Party, and I’ve never once had any issues around being a spokeswoman on trans rights. I chair the LGBT section, along with our TD John Lyons (Member of Parliament). TENI has done great work in getting the message out there and raising the issues.

The media, after a bad start, have now for the most part realized that how they portray trans people very much reflects on how society treats trans people, and the press in particular have become much more accepting, and that has spread throughout Irish society. There are still villages and towns where there is transphobia, and that’s particularly difficult in our education system at the second level, but again, things are improving greatly.

 

From a charity event recently with my good
friend Alan Mulvaney.

 

Monika: And what do you make of how transgender stories have been covered in the Irish media so far?

Louise: Irish media have become much more accepting.

Monika: What are the biggest issues on the transgender agenda in Ireland right now?

Louise: Gender recognition is the issue, and as we’re the last in Europe, we have the chance to get things right.

Lowering the age limit for recognition from eighteen to sixteen is currently a hot topic. I got a motion passed last week at the Labour Party conference, mandating the party to work toward this and other goals to get the GRA as good as we can get it.

Monika: Are you involved in politics or lobbying work, and do you think transgender women can make a real difference there?

Louise: I’m very active in politics. Unfortunately, I’m on the wrong side of fifty. If I were younger, I’d be in the thick of it, even more than I am now. Last year, another trans woman and I spoke at the Labour conference on a motion. We were the first trans women to speak at any political conference in Ireland, and the media never picked up on it or commented. I’m in our parliament virtually every week.

Our LGBT section is ten years old next Tuesday, and I’ve been asked to speak to the room. We were to have our foreign minister and deputy prime minister Eamon Gilmore speak, and I was tasked with introducing him. He’s gone off to South Africa for the Mandela funeral, so it will be another high-ranking government minister, which for me is a great honor.

Monika: The T often comes last in LGBT. Does the transgender community still manage to get its own voice heard within that wider movement?

Louise: In Ireland, we have strong support for trans rights from the LGB movement.

Monika: Have you ever been married? And what role does love play in your life?

Louise: I was married for twenty-two years and have two grown-up children, both married, and I have four grandchildren. Love is important to me, but Irish men tend to treat Irish women, both trans and natal, quite badly. We’re seen as dogsbodies, to cook, clean, and be sexual objects tied to the kitchen sink.

Things are changing, but the attitude of the Catholic Church in Ireland has messed up a lot of heads, particularly around the issue of sex and relationships. Looking for a good Irish man to treat you well is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

 

With my good friend Emer Costello MEP and Adam Long
at Dublin Pride.

 

Monika: Do you have a love for fashion? What sort of outfits do you gravitate toward?

Louise: I love fashion. I try to keep up with trends as best my finances will allow. Because of the work I do, I tend to have to look as well as I can. I try to dress for my age without looking like mutton dressed as lamb. The occasional shorter skirt, but not all the time.

Monika: What’s your take on transgender beauty pageants?

Louise: I have no issue with them. Many of my Filipino friends in Ireland are involved, and I’ve worked at many of them professionally.

Monika: Many trans women end up writing memoirs. Has that ever crossed your mind?

Louise: I have seven chapters written and hope, with my ghostwriter, to have them published in the autumn of 2014.

Monika: What’s next for you, and where do you see yourself five to seven years from now?

Louise: Happy and retired, enjoying life sedately, or as sedately as my activities allow me. :)

Monika: Would you say you’re a happy woman today?

Louise: I’m the way I should have been born, and I’ve never been happier. Love in my life would complete it.

Monika: Louise, thank you so much for this conversation. It’s been a real pleasure.

Louise: Thanks a lot! I hope that is of use to you, and perhaps you could send me the blog when you have it written. Take care! Louise

 

All the photos: courtesy of Louise Hannon.

© 2013 - Monika Kowalska