It wasthethingthatshegotupin themorningfor.AndI’d
saytoher,‘Butwhatif youdon’trecoverfromthesurgery?
Whatif youdie?’Andshe’dsay,‘ButI’ddiea woman.’
She loved the idea of seeing herself in the coffin in a fully
female body.SosaysRowenaBianchino,directorofHarbourTherapy
Clinicin CoffsHarbour,ofColleenYoung– theincreas-
ingly frail, elderlytransgendersubjectof Ian W Thomson’s
documentaryBecoming Colleen (2019), from where these
wordsweretaken.
Oh, had Doris Wishmanonly not gottenthere first with the
title of her notorious1977 transploitationquasi-documentary,
or else the perfectsubtitlefor Thomson’sfilm wouldhave
been ‘Let Me Die a Woman’!Instead,the filmmakeropted
for ‘Finding the Shoe That Fits’, shoehorning Young’s love offemininefootwearinto an awkward,sugar-coatedmeta-
phor for a sadly abbreviated,late-in-lifegendertransition.
For a film whosefocus is on someonedetermined,
belatedly,to live authenticallyand beacknowledgedas
the womanshe alwayswantedto be after eighty-two
years performinga conventionalmale persona,it is apt
thatBecomingColleenopenswith a caveatthat Young’s
familyand friendsoften refer to her ‘usingthe male pro-
nounsthey knew her by’. Misgendering– a perennial
high-rankeramongtrans people’sgreatestbugbears– is,
alas, rampantin interviewsthroughoutThomson’shighly
affecting,yet flawed(and occasionallyeven amateurish),
documentaryportrait–cum–gentle agitprop for greater
LGBTQIA+understanding.
By featuringthis caveatat its very outset,the film frames
proper pronoun usage as the foremost metonym for theAbove: Colleen YoungDYING AWOMAN WITH DIGNITY
BecomingColleenandLate-lifeGenderTransition
Transitioningis alreadya tryingprocess,demandingmuchfromthebody,themindand
interpersonalrelationships,butthejourneybecomesevenmorecomplicatedwhenit is
undergonein oldage.Sucha stepwastakenbyoctogenarianColleenYoung,whose
experienceof genderaffirmationis chronicledin Ian W Thomson’sdocumentary– one
that, accordingtoCerise Howard, is simultaneously poignant and piecemeal.86 • Metro Magazine 201 | © ATOM