Monika: Choosing a name is such a deeply personal decision, one that can hold layers of significance and meaning. How did you come to choose your name? Does it carry a special resonance for you, perhaps representing a part of your journey or embodying a particular feeling or aspiration?
Bea: My shortened dead name began with the letter ‘B’, which I phonetically extended to Bea and then Beatrix (I liked the idea of a name with an ‘x’ in it). Elizabeth? Because it had a nice rhythm to it. It was my first choice of name, and I’ve stuck proudly with it for close to 20 years. :-)
Monika: When you came out, did your mother have a chance to embrace you as her daughter? And do you feel any connection to her in the way you look, carry yourself, or even in your style and mannerisms?
Bea: I think she was astonished, but perhaps not surprised. I guess she loved me just as I was, irrespective of what I was wearing. For a while it took her effort to call me by my chosen name, but I never got angry about it. After all, your mother has privileges. :-)
Monika: Do you remember the first time you met a transgender woman in person? What was that experience like, and how did it make you feel?
Bea: Oooo… Do you mean in person or online? I was in contact with trans people online for a couple of years before I came out, via the ‘Angels UK’ forum. I always thought: what an extraordinary bunch of people! Some are neurotic as hell, others overcompensating, some lovely, some sexual… But most are just trying to carve out a niche for themselves in life. My first person-to-person meeting surprised me. I discovered I was getting better feedback about my appearance than I had imagined. I wasn’t ‘passing’, so much as just breezing through life. But some of the people I met then have remained friends ever since, and I still feel grateful for their counsel and support.
Monika: Many of us feel the pressure to “pass” as women, and even after surgeries, society keeps judging us. How do you personally deal with the outside world’s expectations?
Bea: I get by. It surprises me each and every day. I try to avoid using the word ‘pass’, as I’m not trying to do so. I want to be transparent: noticed but not noticed. It’s a strange experience to have cisgender Geordie women come up to you in the street or in the supermarket to tell you how nice you look. It happens far more often than I had imagined it would. How could I have imagined, back in my male past, that such a thing would ever occur? So maybe I do pass. But I don’t try.
Monika: In your essay on being transgender, you resist the idea that there is one correct way to experience or navigate transition. How important is it for you to protect the individuality of each person’s journey, particularly when public discussions so often look for a single definition of what it means to be trans?
Bea: It’s vital. Everyone’s needs are different (something I learned from old Maslow), and everyone’s use of the words ‘gender’, ‘male’, and ‘female’ is subtly different. Consequently, all routes eventually ‘lead to Rome’, but they don’t necessarily all take the same path. Trans people need support, confidence-building, open-ended advice, and practical assistance, but not to be told what to do. I just wish there was a Transgender Manual that told you how to solve this quandary. It would make our lives a lot simpler! :-)
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“I’m very much a non-linear learner myself.” |
Monika: Every generation of transgender people grows up with a different set of possibilities and obstacles. When you compare your childhood in the 1960s with the experiences of young trans people today, what changes give you hope, and what continuing difficulties concern you most?
Bea: Today’s trans people are a lot more fearless and confident. They know themselves better. But the societal challenges are unchanged, and in some areas they have got worse. For example, the abuse and bullying on social media. It’s easier to find out about yourself now, but the existential issues remain. We have better legal protection in the UK, but it has a tentative quality to it. We’re also in the spotlight more often… with occasional bad consequences.
Monika: Your work as an NHS governor has given you a view of healthcare that goes beyond your own experience. You have raised concerns about lengthy waits for transgender healthcare and the risks these delays can create. What do you think healthcare institutions most need to understand about the human consequences of waiting for care?
Bea: That the wait adds to the condition, the illness, and the state of the individual by creating an extra mental health burden on an already stressful situation. It’s easy for a person to become even more distressed as they sit around waiting for help. Months… years…
Monika: Following the UK Supreme Court’s 2025 ruling on the legal meaning of sex under the Equality Act, you highlighted the fear and uncertainty experienced by transgender people in their everyday lives. How did that period affect you personally, and what responsibilities do you believe public institutions have towards people who feel increasingly vulnerable?
Bea: It was like having a target painted on my back. I saw gloating headlines in the press and on TV as the media jumped on the ‘they’re not women’ bandwagon. It was never trans men, always trans women (which tells you something about British misogyny). For a while I was paralysed by the potential catastrophe. But I fought back by writing about the ruling, knowing the law, and giving logical analysis. It didn’t protect me from the haters (haters-gonna-hate), as they weren’t interested in good sense.
But it was therapeutic for me and gave me an arsenal of defensive tools for when I ended up protecting my sanity against those who want to do me wrong. And I’m an NHS governor, so I have a say in things. The NHS, and every other public body, should act ethically first and within the law secondly. Without ethics (I’m a Kantian) the law is meaningless, or rather, its application becomes moot. Therefore, there is a very strong need to think through public policy on a moral basis, and be open about it. Too often decisions are made on an institutional protection basis first and not on an ‘are we doing the right thing’ basis.
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| “You can avoid the truth only so long.” |
Monika: You have argued that transgender people must be included in decisions that affect their lives. What does meaningful consultation look like to you, and how can institutions avoid treating trans people as subjects of policy rather than participants in shaping it?
Bea: As always, it’s a two-way thing. Trans people can’t sit idly by and expect the cisgender majority to just be ‘nice’ to us. We have to be out there, volunteering, standing for public office, and making strongly rational arguments (not just the usual appeals to emotion). Then we will be noticed. Institutions need to stand by their policies, rather than pretending to do so. That means making sure that trans voices have a place within their systems (boards, committees…) and not just as tokens, but as a valuable insight into what difference is like. It’s possible, but it takes courage and will.
Monika: At seventy, you belong to a generation of transgender women whose experiences are often missing from discussions that focus predominantly on younger people. What do you wish more people understood about growing older as a transgender woman, and how has your relationship with yourself changed with age?
Bea: I guess I’m more at home in my skin now than I ever was. The press of sexuality has diminished, so I feel less overexcited by just being out and about. The shock of the new has become the contentment of the old. But being older also brings worries about health and capacity to fight the problems of ageing masculinity filtering through. Luckily this hasn’t happened. Yet. In a real sense, all trans people have a dual health profile: both the male (bodily) and female (endocrinal) ones. It’s a messy thing to deal with.
Monika: Finally, what would you like your legacy to be, both as an educator who has helped generations of learners and as a transgender woman whose experiences may offer encouragement to those still searching for the freedom to live as themselves?
Bea: I hope people will remember me. Not for anything other than being their teacher and their friend. I hope so.
END OF PART 2
All photos: courtesy of Bea Groves-McDaniel.
© 2026 - Monika Kowalska
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