Potbellied greenkeeper now a Glassons girl

By YVONNE MARTIN - The Press | Friday, 18 January 2008

It took Robbie, the greenkeeper at the Charteris Bay Golf Club, 54 years to pluck up the courage to tell people about his true identity as a woman.

• Schools 'should allow' children to change gender

For most of his life he had been cross-dressing privately at home, fearful that somebody would discover his secret. Then Robbie began grocery shopping at the supermarket as a woman.

During a week's holiday on the West Coast as a female last year, he realised there was no going back.

In December, Robbie began life afresh as Rebeka, after sending letters to the golf committee and friends announcing his new identity.

"My life as a male was a false life. Because of my job here, my coming out was always going to be public," said Rebeka, who requested her surname not be published out of respect for her family.

"Everybody had lots of warning and they could talk to me about it if they wanted. Everyone has been excellent."

Updating her birth certificate and driver's licence to reflect her new identity was the easy part for Rebeka.

Far more fraught was breaking the news to people closest to her, risking hurt and rejection.

Rebeka has been married for 32 years and has two grown daughters.

"I have probably been working towards this all of my life. I have always had female clothes. My partner has obviously known about it for a while and because of it our marriage was probably going downhill, but now it's good. I'm pretty lucky."

At first, Rebeka's partner, a nurse, agreed to her being a part-time woman, so long as she did not have to see Rebeka in woman's clothes.

The West Coast trip allowed Rebeka the chance to be a woman for a week. The taste of freedom proved intoxicating.

"It was too good. Instead of making it better, it probably made things worse," said Rebeka.

"I was quite unhappy, so she decided in the end. That's why I came out when I did."

They now live as sisters or flatmates in separate rooms. They share ideas on what to wear, but don't swap clothes.

"We agree not to shop at the same shops. She's the Ezibuy one, I'm the Glassons girl," Rebeka said.

Robbie was an overweight bloke, with a moustache, who drove a 4WD and was into heavy drinking.

He worked for the Fire Service for 25 years, five of them as Oamaru's fire chief.

"A friend of ours from the North Island only found out the other day and her comment was that I was always a blokey sort of a person. Maybe I was, but maybe I was also overcompensating," she said.

"As a male I used to wear quite boring, functional clothes. Now I like nice clothes."

As Rebeka, she has dropped four dress sizes and lost the beer gut. She shaves twice daily to avoid a 4pm shadow. She is still establishing what clothes work on her petite, but muscular, size 10 frame and what wig looks best. She has a generous collection of boots and enjoys wearing stilettos up to 8cm high.

She tends to dress in a younger, contemporary style ("my partner calls it my teenage years") in soft pinks, lemon, black and white.

Rebeka chose to work Christmas Day so she could have Boxing Day off to hit the sales, along with half of Christchurch.

"I could be a shopaholic, no trouble at all."

Rebeka's coming out shocked her daughters, who are still coming to terms with the change.

"In my case, male to female, their father has died. He's gone. It's extremely difficult."

Her 82-year-old Oamaru mother was also floored "but within about 15 minutes we were talking about what size clothes we can wear and what colours".

Rebeka's accepting in-laws, in their 70s, bought her a cosmetics gift voucher for Christmas.

Rebeka's letter to her friends signalling her change began: "I need to tell you about an exciting change to me and my future life. But before I go further I need to ask you to accept the change, before you work on understanding what is happening."

She went on to explain she has a gender identity disorder; basically she was a woman trapped in a man's body.

The reaction in her rural seaside community was surprisingly good.

She was invited to play bowls as Rebeka in early December, her first official public outing, and only one person on the bowling green was momentarily stunned to see her dressed as a woman.

Her golfing colleagues have been equally accepting.

Rebeka is about to make her debut in women's golf and is applying for a new handicap, in consultation with the governing body, New Zealand Golf.

"I feel relieved, happy and glad to be where I am. I regret not having done it 100 years ago."

Rebeka has begun hormone treatment which will enhance her breasts and hips, and reduce body hair. She intends to have sex-changing surgery in future but must first live full-time as a woman for two years.

Rebeka will try to access the Ministry of Health's high-cost treatment fund, which pays for a maximum of four sex-change operations every two years.

"We could remortgage the house, but why should my partner have to suffer as well because of the way I am? And it would be quite a financial burden," she said.

"If they are fixing up drunk-drivers, I'd rather they left one of them lying on the side of the road. They asked for what happened to them. I didn't ask to be the way I am."

Even after surgery, Rebeka has no inclination to meet a man in future.

"I have been diagnosed as a lesbian," she said.

"If I never have another relationship, it wouldn't be the end of the world.

"I'm just happy doing what I'm doing. There will probably never be another partner."

But there is one traditionally male passion Rebeka has not shaken.

When she is not sitting astride a ride-on mower cutting the greens, her transport of choice is a gleaming, black Suzuki SV1000S motorbike.

NEW LIFE: Friends, and committee members of the

Charteris Bay Golf Club, where Robbie worked as a

greenkeeper, received letters to say that Robbie was now

Rebeka. Their reaction? "Everyone has been excellent,"

says Rebeka, 54, above. "My life as a male was a false life."