Interview with Victoria Masl - Part 2

Monika: What made this experience of love so different and unforgettable for you?

Victoria: After that, we began walking together around the camp and even traveling to Madrid by bus or train. One evening we kissed while sitting on a tree branch in a park, and I felt a strange feeling, as if we were one whole person and a golden sphere surrounded us. It felt as though the world itself understood that we were a true pair. More importantly, I understood it myself. It was as if even God and the devil agreed with it. I had never felt anything like that in my entire life.

Monika: That sounds incredibly touching. How did this experience change your understanding of love itself?

Victoria: I had read the phrase “God is love” many times, but I thought it was just a banal expression and that real love did not exist in the world. Then suddenly I was blessed to experience such a feeling myself. I had many disappointments with false love affairs in my past. However, I was finally given true mutual love. I understood the difference between many false loves and one true love. The difference is simple. All those numerous love like feelings are not love.

Monika: Do you think experiencing such love is something rare?

Victoria: To experience real, true, and mutual love is a very rare case, even for ordinary cisgender people. Millions of people live their entire lives without ever knowing what real love is, or they confuse it with something else. But I had that wonderful feeling.

Monika: Could you tell us a little more about the man you fell in love with?

Victoria: The young African man was an asylum seeker from Sierra Leone. He ran from Switzerland to Spain to join his brother. He was 23, quite tall, with an athletic body and a noble, almost princely face. Although he was Black, his features seemed European. He was very communicative, easy-going with people, and an admirer of white women. 

Monika: How did he show that his feelings for you were serious?

Victoria: He admitted it himself while deleting the contacts of such women from his smartphone. Even in Spain, he had found a local, middle-aged, wealthy Spanish woman within just two or three months, but he left her after meeting me. She came to the refugee camp several times with scandals and tears. He told her to leave us alone.

 

On a walk.

 

Monika: When you think back on that time, what emotions did you experience most strongly?

Victoria: I did not even feel jealous. In real love, there are not many wrong feelings like in false love. I just knew that we were a true pair, that there was nobody else for me or for him. He knew it too.

Monika: How did he show you that he felt the same way?

Victoria: We spent all our time together. He told his brother that he would marry me, introduced me to all his friends, and spent on us and on our food all the money his brother supplied him with.

Monika: Was there a moment when you felt complete trust and safety with him?

Victoria: One time, while visiting his friends in the suburbs of Madrid, we had no money to pass the ticket barrier, and he carried me in his arms over the train station rails and fence. I was not afraid of anything, totally relying on my man and his hands, for the first time in my life.

Monika: Did you ever imagine starting a new life together elsewhere?

Victoria: His friend turned out to be an Italian woman who was marrying his best friend, also an African man, and they were going to live in Switzerland. We drank a little with them and went for a walk. He wanted us to run back to Switzerland, where we would start a new life, because Spain had turned out to be a bad country even for him. Many refugees and immigrants from the Spanish refugee camp ran to other countries in this way.

Monika: Why did you decide that this was not possible for you?

Victoria: At first I agreed, but after thinking about it I was horrified. My position in Spain was unclear at that time, even with documents, and such a runaway could have been a catastrophe for me. Plus, he did not know that I was a transgender woman.

Monika: How did this love ultimately shape you and your future path?

Victoria: Later I tried to explain to him that I was a special woman, for example that I could not bear children. He seemed to understand it, but the next day he dreamed that we would have two or three children. I only thought about how to explain it to him. One sunny morning he ran to Switzerland after bringing me coffee, as usual. We sent each other many SMS messages for months, but later I lost my mobile number and the contact stopped. 

 

In Belfast.

 

Surely, it was a very unusual love story and it was true mutual love between me and that man. Usually I was and still am afraid of dark skinned people because of bad past experiences, but he did not like other dark skinned people either. That love changed me. It gave me more strength and self-acceptance, helped me survive the bad times in Spain, and even helped me come to the UK. It lasted one and a half to two weeks in the summer of 2012, and if it is true that real love can happen only once, I can accept that. Now I probably just need a nice partner.
Monika: Many transgender women choose to tell their life stories through memoirs. Have you ever considered sharing your own story in a book? 

Victoria: I want to do it too, like everyone else, and win the Pulitzer Prize or the Nobel Prize in literature. That is a joke. Seriously, maybe I do have a truly interesting life story that deserves not only a book but even a movie. Who knows.

Monika: What are the main challenges you are facing right now, and how do you imagine your life developing over the coming years?

Victoria: I am currently in the refugee transfer process. No one knows how long it will take. My previous claim, made by my local solicitor, was declined by London, and we were not very well prepared. My solicitor has submitted another claim. The United Nations organization has not responded either. I wrote to them asking for help with my transfer.

Monika: Beyond the legal process, what hopes and goals do you have for your future?

Victoria: In the future, I want to continue working on promoting a positive image of transgender people in mainstream society. If my story can help with that, I would be glad to be useful. I was also included in the local Belfast cochlear implant NHS program. The possibility of hearing again is truly thrilling for me.

Monika: What would you recommend to all transgender girls struggling with gender dysphoria?

Victoria: Be yourself and trust your inner side.

Monika: Victoria, thank you for the interview!

END OF PART 2

Back to PART 1

 

All photos: courtesy of Victoria Masl.

© 2015 - Monika Kowalska