Sex change brings `freedom at last'

JOHN BISSET/Timaru Herald

New me: Waimate's Noeleena Lochhead has had a positive reaction to the sex change operation she had 18 months ago in Thailand.

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NOELEENA Lochhead feels like she has been let out of an asylum.

It has been 18 months since the 61-year-old transformed from Noel to Noeleena. The Waimate woman had a sex change operation in Thailand in May last year a decision she has never regretted.

"I have never had any regrets. I feel more at peace and feel I am free," she said.

"I use the analogy that I have been let out of the asylum. I climbed over the fence and ran and ran and I am never going back to the asylum because I had been inside for 50 years."

Ms Lochhead flew to Phuket to have gender reassignment surgery after living as a transgender for the previous 11 years. She made the final transition by having genital reconstruction surgery and breast augmentation at a cost of $15,000. She had known since she was 10 that she did not identify with boys.

In September last year she had her marriage to Jocelyn annulled after 33 years. The two still share a close friendship and house.

"She (Jocelyn) said to me the other day, 11 years ago she would never have walked down the street with me, six years ago she would have struggled, even two years ago there was a conflict but now she does not worry about walking with me when lots of people are around."

Jocelyn still refers to Noeleena as Noel and their three children still refer to her as Dad.

"The children have been put through the hell of losing their father and there has been some grieving," she said.

"Within our immediate family there has been a big adjustment, but they understood it. But when it came to the crunch and had the operation, they went through a lot.

"Joce and my daughter have probably come to terms with it more; the boys still struggle with it. I have six grandchildren so there will be the day when they have to deal with it too."

Ms Lochhead has become involved in a number of women's groups around Waimate including the Edwardian Heritage Group. She went to Oamaru with the group for a heritage week. She has written stories for Transliving magazine in the United Kingdom.

"I am like their foreign correspondent. While they have the English scene covered I can write about what's happening here in New Zealand."

There have been no complications since her surgery.

"I have not been to the doctor once in the last year-and-a-half. That's not to say that others do not have complications I just haven't."

Ms Lochhead grew up as Noel in Christchurch with her mother and her father a well-known wrestler. She had no contact with him after she was five.

After school she went on to work in the building industry, marry Jocelyn and have three children.

While "Noel" worked in construction, she was not "one of the boys" who went out drinking, and was aware early on a naked woman did not arouse her psychologically. It was not until 11 years ago that Noeleena came out as a woman.

"I put on some female clothes and physically, emotionally and mentally everything shifted.

"I said to my wife Jocelyn, `you know I'm a female on the inside'.

"She wondered what the hell was going on. She had married a male and expected him to remain a male and now there was this great shift."

From then Noeleena came out as a woman.

"I would tell the people who knew me as Noel that next time they would see me I would be wearing women's clothing."

The couple have lived in Waimate on and off for the past 13 years, and have found people accepting.

She travelled to Thailand for her surgery because it is not done in New Zealand.

"Transgender happens at birth. Cross dressers are just about the dressing and there may be a sexual element to that. I see myself now as a transfemale. I have transformed into a women. The operation has given me complete freedom to be a woman."