By In conversation with Ciara Dwyer
Sunday Nov 30 2008

If I'm on a day shift in the hospital, I start work at 8am. For this, I usually get up at 5.30am. I get up early to make myself beautiful. I have to wash my hair and straighten it. I want to look great for my patients. I work in the orthopaedic surgical ward. The patients are sick and they can be down, so I want to build them up. When I don't fix myself up or have make-up on, they're surprised. They ask me if I am sick, and I tell them that it's just that I have been lazy that day. I have a coffee before I leave the apartment, and I have breakfast later on at work.

I used to shave in the mornings, because I used to be a man. I had stubble and all those problems, but then I went to a laser clinic in London and got rid of all my facial hair. I went through a transformation. At first I was gay, then I started dressing up in women's clothes and becoming effeminate. But I suppose I was always effeminate. I think it's an environmental thing. I'm the youngest in my family -- I have two older sisters. I wasn't allowed to try on their clothes, but I was always playing with their dolls. My father was out working all day, so there wasn't a strong male influence at home. I was with my sisters and my mother and I tended to imitate them when they were doing their hair and make-up. My family is into this whole Catholic thing, and they had all these expectations -- you have to do this, you have to do that -- but eventually I achieved my own expectations by transforming.

I let my hair grow long. I got my eye bags removed and I had my tits done at the same time. I think I'm addicted to surgery. I had my lips plumped with injections, and I've had implants into my bum and hips to make them look curvier. I also had two jobs done on my nose and got my chin fixed too. My pain threshold is very high. Before the surgery, I went for hormonal therapy, and I also went to see a psychiatrist who counselled me. You have to be prepared for the changes you're going to undergo after taking hormone therapy. You become just like a woman -- moody and snappy and you get depressed. I put on weight with the hormone tablets, so then I had liposuction twice, but after that I put the weight back on, because the tablets give you an appetite. Now, I go to the gym and work out about four times a week. I lost three stone, and my waist has gone from 38 inches to 28 inches.

I am what you call a ladyboy, or a pre-op transsexual. I have breasts but I still have meat and veggies too. I'm not going to have the full operation -- I want to stay this way for good because I want to be special. If I had the full operation, people would just categorise me as female, and I want to be different. You can have the best of both worlds.

I do a 12-hour shift at the hospital. When I go into work, we do the handover in the mornings, and then I check on all the patients. I give them their medication, dress their wounds and help wash them. I'm a senior nurse with a permanent position. I wouldn't be at this level if I wasn't good at my job. I build up a relationship with my patients. I am very professional, but I am friendly and I crack jokes with them. A lot of them wouldn't know that I'm a bit of both and they'd be flirting with me. I keep it professional, especially when I am washing them.

Some of the patients would definitely have some idea at the back of their mind about me, but they'd be afraid to ask. Sometimes if I'm doing a night shift and I'm tired, my voice isn't this pretty thing, and it gets a bit low. It would be low in the mornings too. Some of the patients ask me straight out: 'Excuse me nurse, are you a man or a woman?' and I say: 'I'm a bit of both.' Everyone in work knows, and they're fine with it.

One patient is very old, and one night I was talking to her on the night shift. My voice was so tired, and it became very low. She asked if I was a man or a woman and when I told her that I was a transsexual, she just said: 'Ah, OK.' Everybody laughed because she didn't say anything. I do encounter asshole patients. There's one really irritating patient who says: 'Hey bloke, hey bloke,' but, being a nurse, you just have to let it go over your head.

All the nurses wear trousers. In the UK they still wear dresses. I wish I could, too. During Halloween all the patients were saying: 'You have to dress up,' and I joked with them that I was going to put on my PVC nurse's uniform and run after them in the ward.

In the Philippines, the staple food is rice, but since I became concerned about my weight, I just eat vegetables. Now I only have rice once a week. Sometimes when I'm heating up my lunch, my colleagues don't like the smell of my food -- one day I had pork with vegetables and shrimp and they didn't like it, but what can I do? I have to eat.

After work, I go to the gym. I do aerobics, and for this I wear cycling shorts and a T-shirt. There's no bulge in my shorts because I strap it down, like magic. I wear a two-piece bikini in the sauna, and I use the female changing rooms. Before, when I was a gay boy, I used the male locker rooms, but since my transformation I've found an accommodating gym. I wrote in my application form that I am 'Miss', but on my identification papers it says that I am male. I don't think it is a big issue for them, and I have always been honest about what I am.

Because I go to the gym so often, I don't really have time to go out. When I first came to Dublin I went to The George and everyone there was very butch, what we call Muscle Marys. I thought: 'My God, I don't fit in here.' In the Philippines, when you're gay, you're a pretty fag who dresses up. As for my love life, I've been disappointed. There are tranny lovers -- bisexual men who go with us, but it's like we're a novelty. People think of us as sex objects, and that's a far cry from what I want. I would like a normal, loving relationship, with sex also, but not purely because of sex and my physical features, but for what I can offer on the inside. I've been through so much heartache. Yes, I am looking for a man who loves me for me, but we have this joke: 'Oh God, I wish I could get a woman because I'm finished with men.' But it's just a joke.

I'm in bed by midnight. That's when I read. I love fiction, especially James Patterson's books. I like to watch TV shows, and the news from the Philippines. Most of the gays from my country who are in Dublin tell me that I started it all. I had the courage to have my operation. When they go out, I tell them: 'Never pretend that you are not what you are.' I'm very open and, as a result, I'm not embarrassed or scared any more.

Sahara will feature in the documentary 'Identities', which will be screened in the IFI on Sunday, December 14 at 12pm.

Afterwards, there will be a question and answer session with the director, Vittoria Colonna, producer Rachel Lysaght of Underground films and some of the film's participants. See www.ifi.ie

- In conversation with Ciara Dwyer

Download our Free iPhone App Now