"The greatest freedom I found was when I accepted that I was a woman," says Raine Stonewall, who ran away from home, went through military service, traveled halfway around the world and now lives in Costa Rica
Raine Stonewall is a woman who has lived a life that she says would last "ten ordinary lives". She was born a man in Budapest, spent her childhood between Czechoslovakia and Africa, left home at 16 and later went through military service and the wild nineties in Prague. She traveled halfway around the world, working on English farms and as an interpreter in the courts before finally finding home and love in Costa Rica. In a candid interview, she talks about when her identity was a burden, when it was a source of strength, and why she would never want to return to the Czech Republic.
You were born in Budapest as a man, but already at the age of four you felt that something was not as it should be. How do you remember this moment and what did it mean to you at the time?
When I came into this world, I weighed only five kilos and was eighty-nine centimetres tall. Although we have gigantism in the family, in my case there should have been two of us, but I ate the other one while still in the womb. In my childhood, I was not one-sidedly inclined to either cars or dolls. But I did have my favourite felt doll, who paid for my love with a supreme punishment handed down by my grandmother. Ironically, however, it was she who opened the door of womanhood for me, to which I was naturally drawn.
Tendencies towards cheapness are another of our family's hallmarks, which is why my grandmother decided that instead of investing in a seamstress, she would rather use me to try on clothes. Considering my size, this was, after all, very convenient. In other words, her actions were purely practical, with no attempt to humiliate me as a boy. Although in the case of my mother, who was born as a fourth and unwanted child, my grandmother repeatedly showed herself to be a real bully. Anyway, there is no question of my grandmother, let alone my mother, wanting me to be a girl, especially in the seventies. Transgender was an unknown concept back then, even though transgender people existed long before I was born.
I remember like it was yesterday, my grandmother was making a dress for my cousin, who, although born much smaller than me, quickly outgrew me. I loved that dress. It was plaid like the Scottish skirts I wore later in adulthood to historic battles. I didn't mind my grandmother putting me in it so she could pin whatever she needed. On the contrary, everything seemed to fall into place at that moment. I felt so incredibly happy, yet insanely sad because I knew I would never be able to live life as a girl.
It wasn't just the dress. It was just a part of... A part of the natural identity that was developing in me, like a tree develops from a little seed that has everything important encoded in it. Unfortunately, neither in childhood nor later in adulthood was there a stable, let alone safe, place for me to exist. If someone had offered me at the time that if I sacrificed a limb, I would be able to switch bodies with my cousin, I would not have hesitated.
You spent part of your childhood in Africa. Did you feel freer to be yourself there than in Europe, or was it even more challenging for you?
I got to Africa thanks to my stepfather, who was invited there as a special forces instructor. For me, this meant compulsory schooling at the local institute alongside the children of other Czechoslovak employees of the Libyan government. Considering that my biological father was of Hungarian nationality and I was also born in Hungary, I was nothing but Hungarian scum in the eyes of my Slovak classmates, who were the majority there. And my size only strengthened their desire to overpower and humiliate me.
In such a group, I could not afford to give vent to my girlish desires and had to fight back daily against a three or four-member majority that had no qualms. This, of course, very soon earned me a bad reputation as "the big, bad boy who beats up everyone else for no good reason." This, in fact, continued to haunt me later in Czechoslovakia, where I went to primary and secondary school, and where I was attacked almost daily by groups of different nationalities determined to try new fighting techniques and, in the worst cases, knives on me.
I did not find much support from my parents. Through me, my mother tried to fulfill everything she herself had never been able to achieve, and above all to make me the boy she had once wanted to be. Yes, my own mother showed transgender tendencies, which developed in her adolescence, when she tried to earn a new male name, Jirka. Yet, or perhaps because of this, she had no understanding for me, and this was compounded through a stepfather for whom nothing was good enough.
When I got my hands on Action Joe figurines in Africa, he referred to them as embarrassing dolls for little girls. On the other hand, he would have a hysterical fit every time I brought him a scorpion or other dangerous catch worthy of a brave man-hunter. In hindsight, I have to admit that I would not welcome a black widow with a cocoon full of eggs in my home today either, but since I still have the soul and enthusiasm of a young explorer, I would be sympathetic to such a gift.
I certainly wouldn't have dealt with the situation with the "educational punishment" my parents gave me back then in the form of a trip to the high seas. We went there in a funny inflatable boat, which can only be compared to the one in which Miloš Zeman used to be cradled on the dam. And then they rocked the boat with the words, "Now we're going to throw you to the sharks", and they could have laughed when I got scared. My stepfather offered me his toe that day, only to be reminded for the next almost ten years what a fool I was when I grabbed onto him in terror.
You left home at 16. Was it also related to the feeling that you weren't accepted as you were by those around you?
The hardest time for me was between the ages of twelve and fourteen, when my desire to be a girl reached its peak. I dreamt about it every night, couldn't resist the temptation to try on my mother's underwear and dresses in secret, and instead of being jealous of my one-year-old sister, I willingly and happily took care of her. She wasn't a doll or some forbidden game to me. It was real child care, and I saw the meaning of life in it. I felt... maternal instincts.
My parents, of course, soon discovered this and decided to combine the nurturing component with the useful one. From that moment on, I had to dress in my mother's clothes and underwear at home, and do all the domestic or "inferior feminine" chores in them. These "lessons" were accompanied by ridicule, vulgarities and regular physical punishment. The purpose was to humiliate and punish me so that I would "understand" what this role entailed and that I was not made for it.
It all came to a head when I was 16, when an event occurred that I don't want to detail here. I perceived the reaction I received from my parents at the time as an absolute betrayal. Especially because I sided with them until the very last moment, despite everything they had done to me. They sacrificed me then, and I understood that there was no place for me among them, nor had there ever been.
How did you perceive yourself during the war - in an environment that was strictly male and had little tolerance for difference?
Although the war was not a liberation for me, I did not see it as a complete ordeal. Considering my height, physical constitution and the fact that I had been active in combat sports before joining, no one really looked for a woman in me. It was just another purely masculine environment this time, where I couldn't afford to show my feminine nature. I served my time and turned down the offer of long-term cooperation because I never got tired of blindly following orders.
In the nineties you got to know the people around Ivan Jonák. It was a time full of freedom, but also chaos. How did your identity and the possibility to be seen manifest in that environment?
The 1990s didn't bring me any particular freedom. Every day I moved in a world full of uncertainty and chaos. To the public, I was a "bad, scary man" and I learned to take advantage of that. It was my mimicry that helped me survive. I never worked for Jonah, but I was often hired as a bodyguard by the people around him.
The basic premise of a bodyguard is to command respect and not be seen until the last moment in such an environment. I therefore kept my feminine side safely in the basement and only let it out when I was alone and could be sure that no one could disturb me. In my case, unlike other trans people, it wasn't shame, it was just survival instinct.
You wrote that you've traveled halfway around the world because of this phase. Has hitchhiking and train travel affected your self-acceptance and perception of gender identity?
Yes, working in these dangerous circles earned me not only serious injuries, but also a considerable amount of money, which I subsequently used to see the world. Unfortunately, even during those long journeys, I could not allow myself to be completely myself. I wouldn't have gotten far on those trips armed with lipstick and a miniskirt. More than once I was forced to use my masculine side when people tried to rob or kill me. Even so, I don't regret that trip, it was an adventure and an experience I will never forget.
After that, you worked on farms in England, but eventually became a translator and interpreter. What led you to carve out a completely different professional life?
I went to England with a friend to earn money. I didn't speak a word of English at the time, so all communication was solely his concern. He got us a job on a farm near Oxford, but the conditions we found there were beyond our wildest dreams. He gave up after two weeks and returned to Bohemia. I couldn't ask my parents to pay for my return ticket, but I was committed at the time to a mortgage on my dream house. A home I never really had, if only because my parents and I were constantly moving.
Eventually it was just me and the owner working on the farm, who one fine day announced that he could no longer employ me because he couldn't support me. He wasn't making things up, the price of pork had dropped rapidly by then and the farm had become unprofitable. So I had no choice but to find a new job quickly. Gradually I tried different professions, but there was a problem everywhere - late pay, unpaid insurance, problematic team...
Finally, by sheer chance, I came across an advertisement. They were looking for an interpreter, and since I'm not afraid of anything, except dentists, after a Czech specialist broke a drill in my nerve, I called there. They invited me for an interview and I got the job. I interpreted for both Czechs and Slovaks, and my most frequent clients were Roma, with whom I had no personal problem, and therefore I did my job not only perfectly, but above all professionally. During the next year I went through a specialized course and tests, and achieved the second highest qualification. I interpreted at court hearings, for the police, for social services and in hospital, where my previous experience in the health sector helped me a lot. Clients were very happy with me and I dare say I became the most popular interpreter in the Czechoslovak community in Newcastle and the surrounding area.
Were the international experiences a place where you felt freer?
Yes, I felt much freer in England at that time than I had ever felt before or since in the Czech Republic. However, the greatest freedom came much later when I met my now husband. Anyway, in England, before I started working as an interpreter, I was at the job centre for a short time, where I met another trans woman. She came there for an initial interview and I was very surprised at how she was treated. None of the officials gave her a hint of ridicule, they addressed her as a woman and accepted everything around her as completely natural. I wished I could have experienced the same, but the instinct for self-preservation that grew in me with hard masculinity was stronger. At that time, I had to give up my dream of owning my own house in the Czech Republic and switched into combat mode. Later on, when I was working as an interpreter and had an established clientele, I couldn't afford to suddenly come to work and say, "Well, from now on I'm a woman and you all have to treat me like one."
Your return to the Czech Republic was motivated by your family, but you also met your husband there. How did your trans experience reflect in your relationships? Was it difficult to find a partner who would accept you?
I decided to return to the Czech Republic, and to end my career as an interpreter, because of my biological father, who was going through a difficult time at the time. However, he had barely gotten over it when he picked up and moved back to his native Hungary, leaving me alone. Finding a partner was extremely difficult for me, although I didn't focus on just one gender or type of people. I always introduced everyone to how things were, what attracted me and what said absolutely nothing to me.
I never had trouble talking openly about sex, but I also didn't feel the need to chant in the streets and make my preferences known to everyone I met. I've always been honest with my partners, but the reverse has rarely been true. The problem with women in general was that they only wanted a 100% man in their home, and my occasional letting my feminine side out of the basement either openly bothered them or put them in a role they couldn't grasp. In the case of men, it always became a one-night stand, with many seeing it as a sexual experiment.
I met my husband, with whom I now live in Costa Rica, by chance through a group of Dragon's Den players. From the first moment I saw him as a man and was very surprised when it turned out he was born a woman. We started out as friends, and it was only as time went on that I revealed to him how I was and what I had been through. The main trigger was one of his questions about my public appearances. He was the first person to see me as a woman before I told him. Our relationship built gradually on mutual trust not physical attraction.
You mention that you now live in Costa Rica. What makes this country a safer and more open place to live than, say, Central Europe?
Although Costa Rica is not an earthly paradise, as no other country is, life here is in many ways much freer and less stressful. It only took one visit to a sexologist and a blood test for my husband and I to begin hormone treatment here. For younger years and people who are just finding their feet, long-term psychological therapy is of course available here as well. So the kind of tales about violently injecting hormones into children or murdering LGBTQ people on the street with a machete, which are circulating all over the internet, really aren't the daily tortilla here in the "west".
Costa Rica is a country full of churches and God is responsible for every late arrival and unfinished business here. I dare say that the faith of the locals, like their superstition, is much stronger than the Polish one, and yet it doesn't cross over into fanaticism. I myself was surprised at how many homosexuals and bisexuals there are here, and that no one makes any secret of it. Well, why should they, right? Especially when the majority society here is non-confrontational and instead of shouting insults or pointing fingers in the street at someone's appearance, they'd rather wish for pura vida or clean living.
Many times my husband and I have asked locals here for their opinion on transgender people, and even the local pastor has told us, "Only God can judge us."
In Europe, and especially in the Czech Republic, I mostly encountered the opposite, although people were not very open with me, given my size. That is, unless they felt strong in their cramped quarters behind bulletproof glass or on the other end of the phone line. Anyway, I would not want to return to the Czech Republic, especially not now, in the situation facing the European Union.
I may not have found the home I longed for in Costa Rica, but the blame is largely on my side. I had brought with me old friends in whom I had placed too much trust, and the subsequent disappointment cut too deeply. Still, Costa Rica is a lesser evil for me than returning to Europe.
My only wish now is that we can sell the land and house my husband and I have built here. Age and the effects of old injuries are starting to get to me, which makes it very difficult to farm the few hectares we own here. Not to mention the fact that I would like to finally undergo a sex change operation, which is an important milestone for me to achieve. And the same goes for my husband.
You say yourself that you've been through "ten normal lifetimes". Kwhen has your identity been the biggest burden for you and when has it become a source of strength?
In a way, it's still a burden, although the biggest burden fell off me when my husband and I started living together. Every morning I woke up next to him was a small miracle and a piece of freedom that I had never experienced with anyone else before. Considering that there is a fourteen-year difference between us and I never had a problem cooking, quite the opposite, many of my friends still joke that I am not an equal partner but a surrogate mother.
I take it with humour, although more than once it turned out that such a remark was only hiding resentment or personal interest in me. Many Czechs still see me as a man, which is quite understandable considering my physical constitution, which I can hardly change. The trouble is that people often get the impression that I am "just playing at being a woman" and doing it "just for my husband's sake."
It wasn't helped much by the hormone treatment itself, which for me, contrary to popular media presentation, certainly didn't turn into a fairy tale treasure hunt at the end of the rainbow. Considering that I didn't start treatment until late in life and got used to a life where there are no big problems but only little hammers, estrogen took more from me than it gave. Until I took hormones, I knew no doubt or fear. My skin was as tough as a hippopotamus and my anger gave me wings. Now it's the other way around. And probably to drink the bitter cup to the bottom, during the period when hormones were the most troublesome and drove me to thoughts of suicide, we had to deal with the problems connected with scams from old friends, subsequent financial problems, and finally, as an icing on the cake, the death of my biological father. I think... No, I'm pretty sure that if it weren't for my husband and his endless support and patience, I would have been swinging from a rafter somewhere a long time ago.
What would you say to trans people today who are perhaps at a stage where they are just learning to accept themselves and are worried about how they will be received by others?
It is you who will live your life, not others. Time passes, people and things come and go, no matter what is left behind. And none of us know the hour of our end. So don't waste your time trying to please someone who can't accept you as you are. Just because you feel alone at the moment doesn't mean you'll always be alone. By clinging to the past and people who can't, or more often don't want to, see the world in colors other than black and white; you will never achieve freedom and your dreams.
