Inverness-based former editor of magazine The Tartan Skirt and transgender support group facilitator Julia Gordon reflects on personal journey towards peace

A trans woman in Inverness says she is at peace decades after facing severe discrimination in the Highlands.

Julia Gordon was married with two children when she initially moved to Easter Ross, but it was there her family unit began to fall apart – and she began to embrace who she truly is.

A former health service employee, Ms Gordon had taken her woodworking business from the Western Isles, where she had initially moved from Glasgow, to Strathpeffer.

However, she was plagued by health issues, and eventually she would realise that the physical symptoms would be eased in those brief, and secret, moments where she allowed herself to live authentically as Julia.

It was certainly not a decision that led to an easy life, but in her eyes, it was well worth it.

“It’s very difficult to know where the thought comes from, it really comes from the core of your being,” she said.

• Keep up to date with the latest LGBTQ+ news from around the Highlands by subscribing to our free newsletter, The Queerier, here

“It just felt like there had to be something better than this. I wanted to see what it would be like to be female, and that seemed to engage an emotional side of myself that had been totally absent when I was living as a young man.

“That led to a psychological and physical breakdown, which is when I decided to set aside my old life and start anew as Julia to be someone who felt nourished. There could be no going back.

“That caused all sorts of issues with the press. I think at that time – because it didn’t just happen once – it was the Daily Record. I’m not sure how they got wind of it, but they went to my wife’s door and asked if she knew about it. She didn’t at that point, so that’s how she found out.

“I had to keep moving, because the press kept chasing me down. The News of the World caught up with me once when I was in Culbokie, teaching piano wearing a pair of trousers and living the rest of my life in a skirt. That was so problematic.

“I was in Contin when I decided to come out, and it didn’t go well at all. I was teaching at the Feis, but when it came out I got let go because the insinuation was that parents thought I was a paedophile.

“I knew I wasn’t a predator, and when you’ve got nothing else to lose, you have everything to gain, and you find your power.”

Having been ostracised from her community and her job, Ms Gordon began working with the sexual health charity Reach Out Highland in the early 1990s – which is where she first came across the term transgender.

Then led by Andrew Hunter, the charity were keen to expand their reach from the focus of the HIV/Aids epidemic into other branches of the LGBTQ+ community, and asked Ms Gordon to facilitate a transgender support group in the 1990s.

Thanks to a bold strategy of advertising it in the local press, attendance steadily grew well into double figures. Even at a time when gay rights were being fiercely fought for though, the trans community were worse off, and that reluctance to be visible outside of the safe haven of their group was quickly demonstrated.

“Things like ceilidh dances started happening in the Station Hotel, and I’m still gobsmacked thinking about it,” Ms Gordon recalled.

“People came from all over the country to go to it, but there were very few people from Inverness. You couldn’t stick your head above the parapet – people were afraid of losing their jobs – but you could do it where you weren’t known.

“We used to get excrement shoved through the letter box. People were physically and verbally abused when they stuck their head above the parapet. We genuinely had no rights.”

Ms Gordon’s work eventually led to her taking over The Tartan Skirt, a trans-focused magazine that had originated as a newsletter in Edinburgh before being edited by Anne Forrester in Aberdeen.

The magazine documented life for trans people in real time, featuring the latest news affecting the community from around the world, features on trans people throughout myths and legends, letters from people in places such as Strathcarron and Dounreay as well as advice on things ranging from dealing with police to the best bra stuffers.

Slowly but surely, she began to get in spaces with people who could have influence on the nation’s culture and policy.

In fact, Ms Gordon was influential in the discussions that placed the “T” in LGBTQ+ on equal significance as gay, lesbian and bisexual people.

“Through my Edinburgh connections with the gay community I was getting to know the movers and shakers in the equality scene down there, and I was very envious,” she explained.

“If I remember correctly, I’m responsible for getting the T added in! We had lots of big meetings with the gay community where one or two of us were pleading our case, and I remember a lot of opposition to it on both sides.

“I suppose they were afraid of being tarred with a brush they didn’t want to be identified with, but eventually it was agreed to join forces and work for changes in equality legislation that would benefit all of us.

“All of this was being recorded and sent out via The Tartan Skirt. Things changed slowly over the whole time. Not a lot, but sometimes enough.

“There was safety in numbers, and once a few of us stuck our heads above the parapets, others followed.”

Despite the influence and impact that Ms Gordon was having on the trans community in Scotland, she still felt a sense of internal unease.

She described it as knowing who she was, but not why she was, which led to her taking the opportunity to study counselling – with as much intent on answering those existential questions as helping others.

That process forced her to become more introspective, and having come out the other side, Ms Gordon has finally reached a point where she is at peace with herself.

“There is a connection between counselling and spirituality, the psyche,” she added.

“With the questions I still had unanswered, I was going within. Spiritually speaking, I was getting the answers that I couldn’t quite get from the world outside.

“Truth be told, I am a very contented person. I am at peace. That certainly wasn’t always the case.

“It’s been a great life. I would do it all again, and I wouldn’t change any of it, the good times or the bad points.”

---

Do you want to respond to this article? If so, click here to submit your thoughts and they may be published in print.

---