Not a ‘girly girl’
“I remember building up the courage to go bra shopping. I was asked to come back at closing time to avoid offending other customers.”
An ongoing collaboration with Bea, winner of Miss Transgender UK 2017/18.
“It’s fucked up, being really happy but falling apart at the same time. A week after winning Miss Transgender UK, I just wanted to ‘fly’."
“Scunthorpe is not the most desirable place to be ‘different’.”
The classic beauty queen reaction: “I swear it wasn’t rehearsed!” Bea laughs.
“I’m a model, a pageant queen, a trans woman, but I’m not a ‘girly girl’.”
“One night, soon after I first came out, I was at a cashpoint. Someone came up behind me, pulled my wig off and punched me in the head from behind.”
“I’ve met someone! Well, not met them, I knew them before. This little flame’s always sat there, and then flick, it’s just gone off like a firework."
“I’ve always been a real private person, ‘it’s my life and people don’t need to know’ sort of attitude. It was new and refreshing to be with someone who didn’t put any barriers up, just accepted you for who you were” - Donna.
“I was working at Greggs when we first met. He came in as a customer and we just started chatting. He was always really cheeky. Never changed - she's still really, really cheeky” - Donna, Bea’s fiancée.
“When I left school, I thought, OK, I’ll teach myself how to be a man,” says Bea, 31, from Scunthorpe, UK. “I’ve been a mechanic, a security guard, a bouncer, a private investigator, a bailiff and a high court sheriff.”
Fast-forward to November 2017 and Bea is accepting the crown for Miss Transgender UK in Brighton. Taking centre-stage she says: “Growing up I didn’t know ‘trans’ was a thing, so I carried on being a boy. I gave up the fight four years ago.”
As a pageant queen, a model, a transgender woman and a woman full stop, Bea frequently finds herself under scrutiny from others, whether from close family or complete strangers. The project title came from this frustration of Bea ‘having’ to deal with other people’s expectations.
A week after the pageant Bea described wanting to “fly”, i.e. to die. “It looked like I was on a high, but I was very much on the edge. At the end of it all I was still sat on my own at night, back in Scunthorpe.”
Getting ready on the train on the way to Doncaster Pride. Bea pauses. “Shit, getting off at Donny with my crown on? Not sure this is a good idea.”
A preacher in Doncaster recommends that gays “repent” and “turn to Jesus”.
“When she came out I thought ‘well I’m not attracted to women, I don’t think that will be for me’. I’d never been with a woman before and we weren’t together at the time so it seemed natural for me to think that way. I beat myself up about it because I think why did I think that I couldn’t love her now she’s female. She’s still the same person” - Donna.
Bea offers to lend her fiancé, Donna, one of her pageant dresses. “I wouldn't be seen dead in a ballgown!” says Donna. “Undoing years of feminism,” she teases. “All the things I’ve fought against.”
Pictures of Bea as a schoolboy stretch up Bob and Christine’s staircase. In one, Bea is holding a certificate ‘for being kind and caring’. “I remember I had to hold it up for the photo, but not for too long in case it got creased. My mum laminated it after. "
“Love you baby. You’re my rock, my world, my everything” - Bea.
“I don’t always want to Bea, Miss Transgender UK, I want to be Bea the woman.”
In Her Words
“When I see the work,” says Bea. “I don’t see a story from someone that has followed me, I see a story created by someone who knows me. It’s so genuine and honest. I can say, that’s me, that’s my life’”
NOT A 'GIRLY GIRL' - FEATURED IN:
Photomonitor, Amber Magazine, Fable and Folk, Fleur and Arbor, Glasgow Gallery of Photography, and Shutter Hub curations, including at Cambridge University, Festival Pil’Ours and an Open Eye digital exhibition.
Find out more about Bea in the write up from Amber Magazine.