Monika: How did you meet Connie? Was it love at first sight?
Geneviève: Connie and I met in 1996 over the internet. Not via a dating site, but on a chat group where mainly Americans were hanging out.
I had a pretty popular website at the time called Femtopia, which I ran with an English T-girlfriend Kay Stevens. That was on Geocities, a web host that is basically something like what Instagram is now. But with much more freedom about how you set up the website.
While Connie and I were talking on that chat group, she had access to my website and she found it interesting. We agreed to have dinner in a restaurant in Amsterdam. We became girlfriends and went out together regularly. It wasn't love at first sight. We were both probing, and both had just come from a previous relationship. I really didn't feel like being in a relationship at all.
After a few weeks we fell in love and that grew into a relationship. It took about 2 years before we moved in together and started adopting cats.
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| Recent photo, kissing my wife Connie. |
Monika: When did you tell her about your female identity? Was she surprised?
Geneviève: Ha, that was during our first chat session. She said, among other things, that her favorite film at that time was: The Crying Game. For those who don't know, it is a British thriller from 1992 with a transgender girl as the main character. Recommended!
That movie opened the way for me to confess to her that I was "like that" instead of the woman she thought she was chatting with. She wasn't surprised at all. It took her weeks to get to know the man.
Monika: Do you share with Connie the same taste for fashion?
Geneviève: Connie has much better clothing taste than I do. She also understands it and knows how to combine excellently and, above all, to dress representatively for every occasion. I use that knowledge of hers to get advice. We both love beautiful, well-fitting, and feminine clothing. But I also like to spend days in jeans, sweatpants or dungarees. In general, we are lipstick lesbians.
Monika: Do you often experiment with your makeup?
Geneviève: I use makeup every day, but after decades of experimenting I have found my style. Usually, a little lipstick is enough. I have sensitive skin and I notice that it can no longer withstand most foundations or other makeup. When I go out, I usually still opt for the full colors.
Monika: By the way, do you like being complimented on your looks?
Geneviève: I've never met a woman who doesn't like to be complimented. They must exist somewhere, but I'm not one of them.
Monika: We are said to be prisoners of passing or non-passing syndrome. Although cosmetic surgeries help to overcome it, we will always be judged accordingly. How can we cope with this?
Geneviève: I am fortunate to be generally passable without cosmetic surgeries. I recently had an eyelid correction done. There are some things I would like to see changed, especially my previous obesity-affected body. That's not so transgender-related, the ladies from my "post-gastric bypass procedure" club have the same thing. I recently had a cosmetic doctor inject something into my face, but you can't classify that under the passing or non-passing syndrome. Maybe I'm a prisoner of vanity syndrome?
In my current transgender circle of acquaintances I know several who are deliberately not, or are very concerned with their appearance. How I deal with that is simple. My interest lies in people, passing or not, it doesn't matter to me. I meet everyone (transgender or not) with a smile, virtual or real, and I get the same in return.
If you have the means and you want to change things about your body, my answer is simple: do it. Fortunately (in the Netherlands) you can now also have operations (FFS, breasts, etc.) performed within the formal transition process and usually paid for by the health insurer.
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| Recent photo in my attic/study. |
Monika: Were there any transgender role models that you followed? I mean especially the Geocities girls. Unfortunately, most of their websites are gone.
Geneviève: In the Geocities time I knew several girls online, with whom I had very nice contacts. We were mostly like-minded. They were not role models for me. I have actively sought to tighten the ties again, but so far without success. Even my partner on our website seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth.
My role models were the "unreachable" people who were committed to the transgender cause or who were famous. Some that you had the honor of interviewing. Caroline Cossey is my absolute number 1, but others known in my youth have also been huge sources of inspiration.
And I still have a huge admiration for transgender M/F who are committed to the transgender cause in all kinds of ways. Alexandra Billings is one, what an amazing woman!
Also, ordinary, unknown transgender people, who are close to me now or in the past, are role models for me. When I was 18, I had my very first — and not last — conversation with someone who was also transgender. She was slightly older and already in transition, while she had just graduated as a doctor and started working as an intern in a hospital. She has always been very important to me as a role model. Thank you, Annette!
Monika: Many transgender ladies write their memoirs. Have you ever thought about writing such a book yourself?
Geneviève: I wrote a book about my childhood up to my thirties. This writing has been lost. Some parts of it have been copied verbatim in a book, a study about “Een Dubbel Bestaan” (A Double Existence), written by two prominent transsexuologists. The Netherlands was the first country with this university title. The sad thing was that my story had been used without notifying me or even asking my permission at all.
It wasn't until years later that I learned that a posed photo of me had been used in a national newspaper to illustrate the introduction of that same book. I felt doubly taken; on the one hand, the plagiarism, on the other hand using a totally unrelated photo of me without notifying me. We are now about thirty years later. I'm over it, Monika.
This interview has made me realize that I have enough "life material" to write a biography. I may do that.
Monika: What would you recommend to all transgender women that are afraid of transition?
Geneviève: This is the hardest question yet. Every person is unique and I think we all have our doubts and fears. Just like with all other issues in life, there is usually one way to deal with them. Make a decision and stick to it.
I too have doubted for too long and let myself be led by fears. When I went into transition thirty years ago, it was an absolute condition that you had to go all the way (GRS). I knew exactly what to say to get admitted into the transition process. I've always had doubts about GRS, especially because I knew plenty of examples of people where the operation had not been successful. Heavy complications and the risk of a total loss of sexual feelings were some of them. Fortunately, that has improved very well!
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| Recent photo, lipstick on my teeth (I have a patent on that). |
It took a very long time before transgender care changed its mind and recognized that the transition also had intermediate forms. Fortunately, you can now enter the transgender transition to the level that suits you best. You should therefore seize this opportunity if you are afraid of a (complete) transition.
Monika: My pen friend Gina Grahame wrote to me once that we should not limit our potential because of how we were born or by what we see other transgender people doing. Our dreams should not end on an operating table; that’s where they begin. Do you agree with this?
Geneviève: Yes, completely. This reminds me of a fairly well-known Dutch transgender Kelly van der Veer, who went into the transition process after winning the Travestie Show I talked about earlier. I knew her pretty well in the nightlife. As a woman, she later took part in the Big Brother series on TV and became a popular guest on talk shows. One of her statements that stuck with me was "I didn't go through all this misery to fart behind the counter in the kitchen".
That was quite specific, but it did portray in a one-liner that we should all pursue our dreams and try to perform and function in the way that suits us best. It is a big mistake to think that your life will become a fairy tale once you have surgery. Indeed, that's when it starts.
Monika: Geneviève, it was a pleasure to interview you. Thanks a lot!
Geneviève: The pleasure is all mine, Monika. I really enjoyed participating in this interview. I hope you will continue to work on life story documentation for a long time to come. Your initiative is invaluable to society.
END OF PART 3
All the photos: courtesy of Geneviève van Lynden.
© 2021 - Monika Kowalska
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