Emma Goswell: 0:05
Oh, hi there, I'm Emma Goswell and I'm your host for Coming Out Stories. Thanks for joining us. We're at Podcast from what Goes On Media and we pretty much do what the Name Suggests. We bring you real life stories from right across the LGBTQ plus spectrum every single fortnight. Oh, if you want to follow us on the socials, by the way, we are at Come Out Stories on ex previously Twitter and Coming Out Stories pod on Instagram. Ah, but time to get cracking with this epic episode Now. If you live in the UK and you like your soaps, annie Wallace needs no introduction. She plays Sally Sinclair in Hollyoaks, a role that saw her become the first ever transgender person to portray a regular trans character in a British soap opera. I went to meet her at her home in Manchester and discovered that she knew she was trans right back as a child in the late 1960s and early 70s.
Annie Wallace: 1:04
Well, in common with a lot of trans people, it kicks in really early. I think because of the nature of sexuality it tends to come out a bit later when people become aware of who they're attracted to and stuff. Gender identity really does kick in at a very early age. This is why all the naysayers are all saying you can't possibly know who you are at like five years old. And I can tell you right now absolutely I did. I was aware of differences early on, but the time that really coalesces into the single incident that made me go, oh was me and my family were on a holiday to Butlens. I was five years old. It was 1970, so the park looked like it did in 1950. So what they had there was they had a crush. They had a play group. If the adults wanted to go and do something like go to the pub or go to like a cabri or something like that, so do something themselves, the little kids could be put in the crush. So that's what happened, and it only happened once, and back then child play was quite gender segregated. There was almost this idea that little boys shouldn't play with little girls because little girls will get hurt, and that literally went through or even to my primary school where there was a fence separating the boys playground and the girls playground and that was really not uncommon. So we're talking 1970, and so it was the same room. We weren't like in different rooms, but the boys were all being kind of rough and annoying and stupid and noisy and the girls were getting on with creative play, so making things and doing that, and I instantly thought, well, not only do I want to do that, then that's the group of people who I feel I belong to, and it literally was at that level. I remember really distinctly. I can see the room in my in my head, I can see the little roundabout, I can see the piano, and I remember feeling that and saying to the, to the play group leader can I please go there? It's like no, you can't, you have to play with them. And I said something like obviously I can't remember the words, but I said something like but I'm one of them. And then I was like, oh, you are not, you're not, you're. So that was really the first moment, and then it kind of percolated in a lot during primary school. The girls wore what I wanted to wear. They did what I wanted to do. I felt part of that subset of humanity.
Emma Goswell: 3:34
It literally was quite tortuous at primary school and did you go back home and say mum dad, you won't believe what I'm?
Annie Wallace: 3:40
at school, they made me play with the boys and I wanted to play with the girls, not initially because, like I said, the reaction of the of the play group leader was an indication enough that maybe this is something I shouldn't say, maybe maybe I'm wrong, maybe actually there's something wrong with me and if I say that to mum and dad then I'm going to get punished. So I didn't, but it kind of percolated on for a while but I I remember it coming to a head for me when I was about eight years old, mum was hanging out washing on the clothes dryer you know the big thing you fold out in your lounge. So I was hanging up in the clothes dryer and I said, mum, can I, can I tell you something? I said, of course, yes, of course. And I says, mum, I, I believe I'm actually a girl and she dropped the washing and she fixed me with this stair and went don't you ever see anything like that again? And she slept me around the face, wow, and I was like, and she was like that that's the worst thing you could ever see. That's a terrible, terrible thing. And I ran off to my bedroom and I never told my parents ever again. That was it.
Emma Goswell: 4:47
Well, that was quite an extreme reaction, wasn't it? It wasn't it. Where did that come?
Annie Wallace: 4:50
from? I have absolutely no idea. My mum was a very gentle person. I mean, it wasn't a slap like that, it was basically a. It was an admonishment rather than an outright act of violence. But it was a really strange reaction from a woman who was really gentle and meek and a nurse as well. And you know my sister doesn't like me talking about this incident because it kind of it tarnishes my mum's image of being a little miss, a lot lovely. But clearly she had a very visceral reaction to me saying this and it literally made me go. I'm never talking about this, ever again. And then trying to make it go away and everything. And it doesn't. It doesn't go away. If you're the kind of person where it sets in at a young age, it's, it's just something that haunts you which I think almost every single person I've spoken to is trans yeah they know from a very young age. Yeah, yeah, and of course I've tried to analyse it and going where did this come from? Because they say that gender is a learned thing. It's, it's whatever. What was it that, those initial five years, that convinced me so much that I below I have no idea. I'm not actually interested. I'm not interested in whether it's genetic or hormonal condition or anything like that. What I'm interested in is the fact that it's real, and back then there was absolutely nothing. You can do nothing. Now there's mermaids, there's other counselling groups and kids can actually be, they can talk about how they feel. Obviously, this notion of walking in as if it's a counselling, saying, hi, change my sex please, is complete rubbish. But this is what they like to perpetuate. But had something like that existed when I was young, I feel that life would have been significantly better and this would have been the 1970s, and where, geographically, were we?
Emma Goswell: 6:42
where were you growing up?
Annie Wallace: 6:43
okay. So, like a lot of places, the further north you go, the more conservative it gets, conservative with a small sea. So I was brought up in Aberdeen, on the northeast coast. It had a history of fishing and paper making and that was the industry. But then, when I was young, the oil industry arrived because they discovered oil in the North Sea. But Aberdeen became very wealthier as a result. So we were very insulated from the rest of the country that were going through the cost of living crisis and the energy crisis and all this kind of stuff, and so we were actually quite a well-off town. My family went well off, just ordinary working-class family. We there was a family of four in a one bedroom flat and it sounds it sounds very um, yorkshire, dark, satanic mills, but it wasn't. It was. We were. We had a good childhood, we did. But Aberdeen got its first gay bar in the early 80s that's how long it took and it wasn't even it wasn't even a gay bar. It was a function room above a bar that met once a week.
Emma Goswell: 7:46
Wow, okay, so it was more of a group than a social place, and I guess you only become aware of this when you were a teenager uh yeah, exactly well, what I decided to do was to go along, and when I went in I noticed it really was a gay bar.
Annie Wallace: 8:01
It was all men. Uh, there was no trans situation going on whatsoever, and I beat a hasty retreat not even a lesbian inside no, let's well. Um, not that I can recall at all. Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. It was very much that and it was weird. But that's that's the part for the course. You know, and I'm quite sure the further north you go, you know Thurso and Wick and everything it'd become. It's like anywhere. You know, um, people who've grown up in small villages in in the west country, they all say the same thing. It's like you know, the only gay in the village kind of thing. And it's it's still happens. It's better, but it's still not brilliant. So I had no one to talk to, no support groups, absolutely nothing, and it was entirely, entirely internalized and what was it like, maybe at secondary school?
Emma Goswell: 8:50
were you just trying to fit in? Were you trying to just be the gender that you were born into? Was? Was there any bullying to people clock queue to people say that you were being feminine. What was going on all of that?
Annie Wallace: 9:04
yeah, all of it. My problem was that I was quite a feminine kid. I wasn't camp, I was just a bit feminine and I didn't try to be anything else, I just tried to get on. I was bullied in primary school to a certain extent, but I was also singled out because because I was bullied excellent example primary seven. So what am I? 11 years old, and the school are arranging um a week long trip to London see the sights and do all that kind of field trip, and I was prohibited from going, not because of me myself, but because I would be disruptive, because people would want to bully me. What, yeah, yeah, actually happened and I kicked off and I'm going you're actually stopping the victim. And it was like yes, you're too much trouble, you attract too much attention.
Emma Goswell: 9:58
That's something that is really bizarre and unbelievable, isn't it?
Annie Wallace: 10:01
It's not completely, because, as someone who experienced bullying at a level that most people would actually be shocked by, people who were bullied were seen as the problem because then they had to deal with it, right, and then there was a lot of victim blaming happening. There was a lot of well, you must have done something to make them do that. What did you do to provoke them? That was literally what was taken One time in secondary school. Every break time a baker's van would come into the playground and sell kids cream cakes. Can you imagine that's healthy? Can you imagine that happening now? But that was normal. So I bought a cream cake and on my way back, just walking across the playground, I was set upon by four people. I had the cake shoved in my face and all over my clothes and then I was kicked and beaten to the floor and my head was kicked several times. I then went up to my year tutor, mr Henderson, who I said what are you going to do about this? Come in, sit down. What's happened? I told him what had happened and I went I've done nothing to nothing. And he goes. Well, you say you've done nothing, but I recall a certain someone who stood up at the school debating class and made a bit of a fool of themselves. So clearly, this is something that you have a habit of doing and, oh God, this is the culture that you literally put up with all the time. So, yes, I was bullied absolutely incessantly I can't remember and physically as well, by the sounds of it. Oh, very, very physically, yeah, kicked down the stairs, beaten up. My legs were covered in bruises all the time. Mum and dad saw them. They didn't do anything about it because it was like, well, what am I supposed to do? So you were telling them what was happening. Yeah, I was saying to everyone I am being physically beaten on a daily basis. Help, I started as a really bright student in first year, way ahead in English and creative writing, talented with art and technical things, and it all got completely stretched and beaten out of me, to the point that when I sat my exams at age 16, I failed almost every single one of them. Very surprising, isn't it really? And I had to say that I want to leave. And I had to say another year and repeat. And at least I got the basics. I got, you know, I got the basics. The only one I passed was English. At least I got something. But my school certificates have absolutely no relevance whatsoever to the person I am today and the skills that I have. History I completely feel history. It's one of my favorite subjects. You ask me anything about history and I'll tell you what happened. It's extraordinary how, if your environment is toxic, you simply can't function in it in an educational way.
Emma Goswell: 12:49
Did you have friends, though at the same time?
Annie Wallace: 12:51
I had a few friends I had half a dozen if that and they were all the geek squad. One of my friends was the author, richard Wade, who has published books on mods and English culture and everything, and we became friends because he was quite clever and I had no one else of that level to talk to. For example, we used to watch Monty Python and talk about it and everything like this, so we got Monty Python jokes. Most kids didn't get Monty Python because it was a bit highbrow. I'm quite left field, isn't it? Yeah, really left field. So me and Richard, we were very good friends right up until about third year and then he moved away again. So for about six, seven years we were really close friends.
Emma Goswell: 13:36
And did you ever verbalize your gender to any of your friends? Yeah, oh, you did Okay.
Annie Wallace: 13:42
Yeah, yeah, and sometimes it was that stupid and a couple of them were really wow, have you told anyone? Wow, that's really interesting. My best friend, shona, lived a couple of doors up, exactly the same age as me. We went through primary school together and then she moved away. Shona just accepted me like a girlfriend, a sister. That was our relationship as friends. She had no issue with it whatsoever. We lost touch for a little while. Then we got back in touch in the 90s, post transition, and she was just like that's better, thank you. Oh, wow. She was just like absolutely, and we had. We rekindled our friendship during that time and everything no longer with us. Unfortunately, she passed away last year from front of temporal dementia, which is a horrible thing.
Emma Goswell: 14:31
But that must have been incredibly important for you. With all that bullying going on and your parents not accepting it and not being able to talk to them, it must have been so important to have friends that accepted you and still wanted to be your mate.
Annie Wallace: 14:43
Yeah, absolutely, and got it at a very non-intellectual level who simply went, wow, okay. So there is some people that feel like that, or born the wrong body, if you want to put it in the cliche way. And they did, they accepted it, and so that helped a lot. I have an older sister, some eight years older, so when I was young, she was a teenager and she was quite tough. Yeah, she was a strong woman. I never, ever told her then because I was sure that that would not have a good reaction either, which is ironic because she's turned out to be one of my biggest supporters and, yeah, she's the first person I told that I was going to transition. My body language was wrong, I didn't speak particularly well and I had a bit of a hormone condition and everything which meant my voice didn't break. There was a lot of physical things as well as the psychological stuff, which did not particularly help my situation then but has helped me in adults life, if I've even whatever body language I was giving off. It was basically attack mode and it was just the most vile time of my life.
Emma Goswell: 15:52
So I'm guessing you left school eventually in sort of early 80s, early mid 80s, and then I think from what I've read, you transitioned in 89. So how did that pan out then? From leaving school to presumably leaving home, did you have to leave Aberdeen? How did it work?
Annie Wallace: 16:09
So I left school in 82, thinking to myself right, I'm going to have some time now to explore myself, my feelings and everything. My mum was having none of it. She was like, right, I'm not having a lay about in this house, get a job. So I got a job in a photographic shop, which actually was great. It was good, fun, but, yes, obviously, because I wasn't at school, I wasn't being beaten up anymore, which was a wonderful relief and it also gave me time to start exploring what am I going to do Now? I had seen in 79, I think it was I'd seen Julia Grant's television documentary on BBC One called A Change of Sex, which was basically showed someone going through the process, which to me was horrifying but also inevitable. I thought so this is it, this is what I eventually have to go through. I can't cope with that. I can't cope with the thought of having to go through all that, but I kind of, at the back of my mind, it was always like well, now you know, the way that you're going to find peace, for this is to do that and you wouldn't have known any other trans people.
Emma Goswell: 17:14
She would have been the only person that you had any reference for, really, I guess, Any reference.
Annie Wallace: 17:18
So I read lots of books about people who'd transitioned. You know there was no online resource. It was literally just books and television documentaries, of which there was precious views, so there was very little information out there. But, funnily enough, as the ETH went along, daytime television appeared and daytime television loved to fill their chat segments with trans people. They really did Like. There was a program called Good Morning and various other things that appeared in daytime mornings and it was basically the Robert Kilroy Silk Show and things like that.
Emma Goswell: 17:54
Oh, I remember that. Yes, I forgot about it.
Annie Wallace: 17:55
It was that kind of show, so it was kind of like talking documentary style, talking to people and stuff like this. And I saw several trans people on TV in that time and I'm going, wow, ok, so it's more common than I think. But I learned and I learned and I got through the ETHs basically just by putting my head down and carrying on. I was a photographic sales person. I went on. I became a projectionist in the cinema for a few years. I then went into computers and was programming computers for a photo laboratory and then in 1988, I hit a brick wall. I hit an absolute brick wall. I was 22. It was no good. I couldn't go on any further. I had a really awful day crying in bed Interestingly never suicidal because I wanted to live. That was the point. I didn't feel I was living. I didn't feel I was going anywhere with life. I didn't know how I could progress. I felt very caged in. I woke up the next day and I went right go to the GP, and that was the start of it.
Emma Goswell: 19:04
During this period, were you having relationships with men or women?
Annie Wallace: 19:08
No, I'm not a very sexual person. I don't talk about that very much, but I'm not really. I've had a few people in my life. Yes, I have, but by that stage, absolutely nothing. I couldn't think about romantic entanglements because my body was all wrong. No, it's just nothing, nothing at all. I think I was about 28 before I had my first relationship. Gosh, yeah.
Emma Goswell: 19:36
So that really was on your mind. Then you had to sort out the gender.
Annie Wallace: 19:40
But even then I wasn't really seeking anyone and I wasn't particularly driven to anyone.
Emma Goswell: 19:46
So how did it go with the GP? Extraordinary well.
Annie Wallace: 19:51
This is still another day. This is Aberdeen, my old GP, who was a kind of you know doctor in his 60s, as was typical at the time. He'd just retired and there was this new young female GP who came in and, um gosh, it must have been about 30. So I went in and I said, look, I've been told this is the first step on a path. And I explained everything to her and it was like, really okay, okay, lots of notes, lots of notes, okay. Well, I don't know much about this at all. And I said no, I didn't expect you to, so I've come with some notes for you. Brilliant. And I'd actually on my computer, I'd printed out notes and said this is how you treat a trans person. So she went right, I'm gonna take all this, I'm going to call a couple of people and I'm going to see what we can do for you. And she went this is, this is absolutely fascinating.
Emma Goswell: 20:45
And I was like wonderful great, it's a better reaction than get lost and we're not doing anything for you.
Annie Wallace: 20:53
Absolutely yeah no, it was great, yes. So she contacted people and she was told first have to refer me to psychologist and have me checked out that I'm not just crazy, you know. So I went through all that process but it seemed very right you do this, and then this, and then this, and then this, and it all, all the steps seemed to go in a very straightforward fashion, funnily enough more straightforward than today. But then politics didn't factor into it and at the moment politics is shutting gender clinics down and back then they didn't so much exist. I think there was two, one in London, I think one in not even Scotland. There wasn't even one in Scotland. And so, no, no, it was. It was a very minority thing in the 80s, so it kind of went forward. And so I started on the path. And then, once I'd started on it and I thought, right, I'd been prescribed hormones for the first time, I went right, I've started. Now you can't stop me, you can't talk me out of it. So I went over to my sister's house and I sat down and I told her and I says this is what I'm going to do. And she just looked at me and she went. You know, that makes a lot of sense and I went in what way? And she went. Well, I thought you were gay and I thought you were just not telling anyone and you were just keeping it to yourself. But this, this actually makes more sense.
Emma Goswell: 22:15
I bet you probably wasn't any person that thought you were gay.
Annie Wallace: 22:17
Oh yeah oh no, no, lots of people thought I was gay. I had a very distant relationship with my dad and I think my dad thought I was gay as well. I was not a straightforward kid, I just wasn't. It sounds like she supported you. My sister did, yeah, so for those initial couple of years of treatment, I had two years of treatment before I transitioned because I thought I need to plan this to the nth degree. I'm not going to tell mum and dad until I've transitioned, so I need to hide it because I knew. I knew the reaction would be absolutely catastrophic. There was no way it was going to be anything else?
Emma Goswell: 22:54
well, you weren't living with them at the stage because I was gonna say they would have noticed changes, wouldn't they?
Annie Wallace: 22:59
I hate most of the changes under under baggy jumpers and yeah but what about the voice and the voice? Not change the voice never changed no, to be honest, my voice was higher than it is now. I'm I'm in my 50s and I think, like most 50 year old women, the voice drops a bit. No, my voice was higher than it is now. I have tips from me being on stage drama or something like this and it's like, oh god, I can hardly listen to it.
Emma Goswell: 23:24
And then you think to yourself no wonder I was beating up so you didn't tell and your sister you trusted to keep the secret. She's any person you told yeah, pretty much.
Annie Wallace: 23:34
I told two of my cousins who I was close to, and that was. It was kind of I was limiting the information, but at the same time I wanted to share what I had decided to do because I wasn't gonna keep it completely secret. And then I had one of my best friends, who is still one of my best friends. I told him and we had already been talking about setting up a computer business together because we were both very geeky computer people, and we'd already spoken about perhaps doing it away from Aberdeen, because Aberdeen was too big and all this kind of thing, and so it seemed like a perfect opportunity. So I said to him I says, look, this is what I'm going to do. It was a bit shocked, but not entirely unsupportive, and I said I would like to transition and move away and do this thing with you, but ultimately that's a lot of burden on you because you'd have to put up with me during transition. I might be quite androgynous and attract attention, all this kind of stuff. And he was very supportive, very keen for it to work. So yeah, that was it 1989. Your life truly began well, the wheels got into motion and then it started off. Yeah, yeah, it's great. So you did move away from Aberdeen. Then I did, I moved away to Falkirk. Once I'd moved away, I gave it a few months and then my sister chicken chicken, such a chicken. I got my sister to tell my parents no, and she did, and she did and they didn't take it. Well, my sister phoned and she went. I've told them it wasn't great. Mum's going to phone you at some point. I went, okay, fine.
Emma Goswell: 25:15
So I'm guessing you did that because you knew they weren't going to take it well.
Annie Wallace: 25:19
I did it because I couldn't be in the room while they were screaming and shouting at me. And my sister volunteered. She said look, do you want me to do it? Because at the end of the day, it doesn't affect me either way, but if you're in the room and they're screaming at you, it could really affect your relationship going forward. And I was like thank you, I'll take you up on that offer. She did it. I didn't hear from mum and dad for a day and then I phoned them and my dad picked up the phone and I went hi, dad, it's me. And I heard him over the phone burst into tears drop the phone and leave the room. And my mum picked up the phone and she went. You know, your sister's told us, don't you? We'll speak to you later? Bang. And I collapsed into a heap and I thought everything that I planned for to try and avoid it's happening. I'm going to lose my parents. I'm going to lose so much in my life because I've done this, because I felt it was inevitable. Yeah, that was basically how they learned, and my dad wouldn't see me for 15 years.
Emma Goswell: 26:31
Wow, I wasn't expecting it to be that long. I guess you weren't either.
Annie Wallace: 26:36
He talked to me over the phone in terms of oh hello, you're right. Okay, how's things? Okay, here's your mother. That's as far as he could go in 15 years. Mum spent six months trying to convince me out of it in a very gentle way. Are you sure? Have you thought about this? Have you spoken to someone? Look, you know there's many ways. You know, you know you can just dress up, do this, mum, it's not your dressing up, I wear jeans. It was like mum, it's not that. And after six months she kind of accepted it was inevitable and permanent. And then she came round and then she started being quite supportive. My grandmother, my step-grandmother, took it in her stride. She went oh, I used to know people like that back in Ireland and I was like, really, what Extraordinary really extraordinary.
Emma Goswell: 27:27
So it's not a generation thing necessarily, is it? Well, I have no idea.
Annie Wallace: 27:33
She worked when she was younger. She worked in, she was a singer, so she worked in kind of artistic circles. So maybe she was slightly non-representative of the period. So yes, I would go back and forth between Aberdeen to Falkirk to see the family and stuff like that, and mum would always meet up with me away from the house. I wasn't allowed to go to my family home in case dad was there. So dad stopped being a factor in my life till 2006, really. And what changed then? So what happened was is that six months previously my dad had a major health scare. He had problems with his heart, he had chronic gout and he had various other problems and it was taken into hospital and actually it was touch and go and I think that he got a taste of mortality. Nobody went up to him and said you know, you know, you do realise you've not spoken to Anne for donkey's ears. I think something in his own mind coalesced that he was about to die after not seeing one of his children for 15 years. I would come up for Christmas, spend it with my sister. My mum would come over to my sisters and we'd meet and we'd talk there, but occasionally she would phone and say oh, come over to the house, your dad's away out. He's gone to the pub, right, okay. So on this particular occasion, mum answered the door and she just looked at me, slightly panicked, and went he's not going away, he's still here, right, okay, fine, we'll come back later on something. No, no, he wants to see you, oh okay, being thrown at me on the doorstep. I can't cope with this. Oh, fucking, I said that. No, no, no, no. But it was too late. He'd appeared. Oh, hello, hello, come in, come in, come in, come in, went in, right, do you want a beer? Do you want a beer? Yeah, come on, we'll get your beer, come on, right, what is going on here? He'd clearly bonk. I'm going to completely ignore what happened over the last 15 years and I'm just going to treat you like I used to treat you.
Emma Goswell: 29:42
Wow.
Annie Wallace: 29:43
And I'm supposed to say nothing about it, or at least if maybe by talking about it wouldn't be a good idea. So, you know, we went and got some drinks, we sat down the lounge and it was like, what are you doing these days? Okay, fine, okay, and then the really weird thing. Now, my dad was a really he was a proud guy of the old school. He was very emotionally repressed. He didn't show love and affection. I don't think he ever said the words I love you to either of his children. He was an odd creature and he definitely didn't trust his kids with anything. So he never let us drive his car. He never took advice from any of us. You know, he knew everything and everything. So we sat there and went and at the time I was working for PC World repairing computers. I had a little suit and a little van and a little car and I went from house to house or from business to business, going in, and I would repair the computer and go bye. And it was quite nice. You've your job at the moment repairing computers. Yes, okay, I'm having trouble with mine upstairs. Do you want to have a look at it If you want me to? Went up to his room upstairs and just starts talking to me, not about being trans, just about, oh well, I've been doing this and been doing that and yeah, so, so what else did you do? So he literally was reaching out to me in a very safe manner. So not saying so, how do you feel now? Or why did you do it?
Emma Goswell: 31:13
Or no reference and no apology for not absolutely talking to him.
Annie Wallace: 31:20
No apology, no reference to it but probably more connection than I'd had with him for 20 years, wow, and it was an extraordinary thing. And then you know, for six years after that, every year go up and see Mama, dad at Christmas and then if you passed away after that, but it was good, I think, from his point of view because he mended a rift and it was great from my point of view because it saved me going into years of therapy of him having died without speaking to me, because ultimately I carried a lot of guilt about that, which of course I shouldn't have, but I did. Trans people are great for guilt. We do it, we're experts. But you know he came close to losing his life and I think it was. Get your priorities in order.
Emma Goswell: 32:05
I bet it's just frustrating to you that it took that for him to come around really and treat you like the daughter that he should have always wanted, and if it hadn't happened, we'd probably have never, you know, reunited.
Annie Wallace: 32:19
That's the weird thing. He would have continued along that road, the same as the previous years, if he hadn't had that scare.
Emma Goswell: 32:27
Terrifying, isn't it? Well, should we fast forward a few years and go from PC world to what you're doing now, because you know you've gone from being someone that you know wouldn't even tell their own parents that they were transitioning, to being one of the most visible trans people on our screens and in our minds, you know? Am I right in saying that you were the first trans person to be cast in a regular trans role on television?
Annie Wallace: 32:52
No, not regular soap role. Yes, okay, yeah, regular soap role. But previous to me, bethany Black had been in Cucumber and Rebecca Root had had that series Boy Meets Girl, which predated me by a year. What, basically, what happened is through the nineties. I was keeping my head down. I was lucky enough to blend in we used to call it passing stealth and I blended in and, yeah, there was occasionally people who weren't sure about me and that was fine. I could cope with the occasional view, but most people just treated me as who I was and that's fine. I went out on Saturday nights and got drunk with girlfriends and we had a good time and I basically felt I was catching up on all the years that I'd missed out on reality. And I discovered my social feat as well, because I was I wasn't very social person when I was P transition at all. So I did all that. And then at the late nineties I got involved with Pornation Street, helping out with the story of Haley Cropper, which was a major turning point in my life.
Emma Goswell: 33:59
And how did you end up doing that? Did they just put a call out for trans people to help with the storyline? No, it didn't work like that.
Annie Wallace: 34:06
At the time, trans people had no legal rights. We had basic kind of social rights to a certain extent, but we had no legal protection so that if your employer or your landlord found out that you were trans, they could quite happily sack you or throw you out of the house, and it was perfectly acceptable, and of course you've lost your job, your chance. We're not keeping one of those on the books. That's how it worked. So I was very keen that it was the only part of my life that had an element of doubt to it, that I could lose everything. And, bearing in mind how hard I'd worked to just get a job and a flat and live like an ordinary human being, it's all I wanted was to be an ordinary human being, nothing flashy. So the fear of losing that was a fairly big thing. So I got involved with the group called Press for Change, who had because I was quite online from 1995 onwards. I embraced the internet instantly when it became available and I found them online and they were basically campaigning to get trans people legal rights and I kind of started talking to them on forums and things like this what can I do to help? Okay, write letters to MPs, try and meet MPs, and so that's what I started to do, and I thought I can do all this campaigning while still having a private life and not having to be out. So I did that, and then this character of Hailey appeared on Coronation Street and initially I was like, oh, it's going to be terrible, it's going to be sensationalised, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then one of my friends, diane, told me to watch it and said you need to watch it. And then I was like, oh my God, she's just like how I used to be, you know, some 10 years previously, and I was like this is extraordinary. So I was a fan, to begin with, of the story and of everything. And then, when the character went off screen for a bit, I got a message from Christine Burns, who lives not far away from here, Also been on the podcast.
Emma Goswell: 36:13
I noticed you've got her book on your bookshelf behind you. I wrote a chapter in that book.
Annie Wallace: 36:17
Oh right, I'm one of the contributors. So yes, and she basically said look, I've just had a phone call from the researcher at Coronation Street and they want to talk to a trans person to get proper research on the character going forward, because they want to bring her back and they want to talk about trans issues Because all that had happened up to that was the love story between Roy and Cropper and Hailey. That was it, and I loved that. I loved that it wasn't about being trans. Being trans it was about it's about a trans person trying to like I did try and have an ordinary life and I loved it for that. And they says, no, we want to talk about the problems that trans people have. And I'm like, wow, coronation Street, this is more of a Brookside thing. And she said, because you've been talking about it, I just wondered if it's something you'd want to do. And I was like, yes, absolutely. So I went down for one meeting originally and it took gosh, nearly two and a half hours, and I was just asked pretty much how you're doing now, asking me about my life, and it was all recorded on cassette tapes and then the cassette tapes were transcribed and then copies of my interview were given to all the writers and it was like this is your Bible. So a lot of what happened to me went into the character, a lot of my actual words went into the character as well. And that was just the initial stage. But then it became an ongoing on and off consultation for 18 months. While we spoke about things, I'd be driving through the Scottish roads in my little course and I'd get a phone call and it'd be like hi, and if you got a chance to talk, yes, go ahead, go ahead. So we're thinking of doing this with Hailey, and what would she say, what would she do to that? Well, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, bye, brilliant.
Emma Goswell: 38:11
And then they really did listen to you think, and they did a good job.
Annie Wallace: 38:14
They absolutely listened to me. There was a lot of artistic license, which they had to do because it's a soap opera, but they put so much of what had happened to me into the character of Hailey and then finessed it through the writing, because the writers were brilliant as well. What they did with it was incredible. And then, obviously, the final element in the jigsaw was Julie Hesmuthalsch, who not only one of the best people in the world but also absolutely committed to doing this justice, to this role. We became mates very shortly after I started talking to Grenada, and so it was a kind of double edge thing. I was consulting with Julie and I was consulting with the script people, and it was a perfect marriage of experience versus creativity that went into creating one of the best soap characters of all time, and I absolutely love that. She became so beloved. And, of course, 90% of that is Julie, because you know I've been played by a different actress. It could have been a completely different situation, but it was nice to have my contribution put in there.
Emma Goswell: 39:21
I love Julie as well. I've got a lot of time for her but I think we kind of moved on from cisgender women playing trans women, haven't we? And I think that's why it was so important that you were eventually cast in Hollyoaks, and I guess that was really important for you, wasn't it to be a trans woman playing a trans woman?
Annie Wallace: 39:37
Well, it's a strange situation because when Julie was being cast, there were very, very few trans actors out there and apparently no one fitted the bill. They wanted a stealth trans person, so that basically the Coordination Street residents wouldn't know until she told them. And in the way that people wouldn't know until I told them, so of course they couldn't find the person that they wanted to play it. So they went instead for someone that they had seen on stage before and she worked out perfect. But yes, at that particular time it was a very different situation. It wasn't a conscious decision that we're going to cast a woman in the role, it was just that look, this is our only real option and she's great. So that's what happened then. And obviously, as time went on and the Gender Recognition Act eventually got passed in 2004, which, incidentally, got kickstarted with the help of Roy and Helle's wedding storyline, which I was very pleased about. So what happened after the Gender Recognition Act is that people felt more secure, that they couldn't be discriminated against and, as a result of this, more trans people thought well, I can be an actor. Why can't I? Because, you know, although I had been to drama classes and everything, and it's what I wanted to do at school. To be honest, it's the only thing at school I genuinely enjoyed, because I felt I had a talent at it and it was nurtured, and my drama teacher was lovely, so it was all. It was the only positive thing that really got me through school. And I wanted to be an actor and I wanted to go to drama school. But back then drama school had to be paid for by your parents and my parents didn't have the money. So I just kind of gave it up and I went techie instead. So what happened with Coronation Street was I would occasionally meet up with the actors in the staff bar and I'd meet up with them in the bar and we chat about stuff and I'd speak to them about how the scenes went and this kind of thing. And then somebody asked me about why did you get into this? And I explained about how I'd originally wanted to be an actor and I think it was Julie that said so why don't you go to drama school? And I went well, because it's ridiculous. And she said there's two of them in Manchester, you know, and you could get a student loan. And I went oh, suddenly my mind's going tick, tick, oh gosh. So she encouraged you to do it. Yeah, yeah, I was. I was about to move to Manchester because, because I was going between Manchester and Falkirk a lot. It's a long way, but every time I came to Manchester I went God, I love this city. There's so much happening, it's so creative, there's theatre and everything. I just love the city. And I was 34. And I thought Do you know what? Just change your life, reboot. This Coronation Street thing has really been cathartic. It's been good Move. So I did, I just packed up everything. But prior to that, this discussion about the drama school. So I went. Do you know what? I could move to Manchester, be where I want, and I could even maybe audition for drama school. Wow, that's what I did. So I auditioned for drama school, didn't get in the first time and I went to drama school in 2001, by which time the consultation with Coronation Street had kind of petered out, because they didn't really need me anymore and I didn't feel there was anything more I could give them. It kind of naturally settled, went to drama school for three years, best three years of my life, very liberating. I still didn't have the courage to come out, so I was still still stealth in drama school. I look back on it. It's like what the hell? I had every intention when I moved to Manchester to come out and I was just too scared.
Emma Goswell: 43:26
So you came out as a trans person in Scotland and then almost went back in the closet because you were stealth, absolutely.
Annie Wallace: 43:32
Absolutely. So there we go. But then once I left drama school, nothing really materialised. I didn't have an agent. It didn't look like I was getting any offers of work. One of the most respected casting directors, sophie Marshall, in Manchester said to me I don't think you're going to work until you're about 50 because of the look and the style that you have. And I was like, oh God, what am I going to do for 11 years? So that was basically where I stood and I went back into doing computers because it's what I could do, paid the rent and it allowed me to put my roots in Manchester anyway. So, fast forward, I lost my job in 2010. And I thought, right, I need to really work at getting this acting career kick started. So I started doing some stuff with Manchester Fringe in the city centre. I managed to get an audition for Shameless, which I got. I got one guest part in an episode of Shameless, did naughty things with Frank Gallagher. I did. Oh God, I'm going to go back and watch that. I know it was like crazy, but it was my first taste of it and it got me an agent on the back of that. So auditions started to come in. At that point. It kind of was a very slow over the space of five years, a very slow thing. And then we come to it's termed the trans tipping point, and that was a thing called Orange is the New Black and for the first time they cast a transgender actor, laverne Cox, in the lead role, and it was hugely successful. Had it not been as hugely successful as it was, we wouldn't have had the situation that we did. But British television producers were going wow, so people want to hear about trans stories. Wow, okay, we didn't think they did. So the first thing that emerged from that was a thing called the Trans Comedy Award and, believe it or not, that came from the Writers Department at the BBC and they put a competition out and they says right, we want to create a sitcom about a trans person. However, it's not to be because they're trans. It's to be, they are trans and it's a comedy. So there was two finalists One was called Nobody's Perfect and one was called Boy Meets Girl. After a long consultation with Julie, I think to. If I go for this, I'm going to have to come out. That's the thing, and it's the thing I'm scared of the most. However, it's the biggest, most golden opportunity of being a big fish in a small pond and because I have the advantage of being a trained actor with experience. Basically we talked it through. Julie was worried for me because she knew that I was quite happy being in my closet and she didn't want me being hurt or upset or stuff like that, but at the same time she was very encouraging and very. You know, you are good enough, why not give it a go? And so I put myself forward. I got auditioned for the Nobody's Perfect one and then I got a recall for it. So I'm sat in a room with John Plowman, one of the most famous comedy executive producers of all time, and I was quite intimidated but did my audition and everything and they were quite keen and it looked like something would happen. Unfortunately, they could only choose one of the series to go forward with and it was Boy Meets Girl that went forward.
Emma Goswell: 46:55
I was going to say I don't remember the other one.
Annie Wallace: 46:57
No, the other one got dropped. So Boy Meets Girl happened and I was disappointed. But I thought you know what. I've taken the step. Now I've psychologically crossed the barrier of I'm willing to do this if it's going to launch my acting career. And then, of course, Holly Oaks, Out of the Blue, puts out this open casting. We are looking for transgender actors in order to create an acting pool from which to possibly cast a regular character from. Please submit blah, blah, blah. So they had lots and lots of applications and they whittled it down to 30 people. We all kind of met up and did some exercises and some talking and and some script work and things like this we were. It was a workshop. Then there was a recall for it and there was only six in the recall, including me and Ash Palmosiano, funnily enough, who's gone on to Emmerdale. So there were six of us and we did much more intensive work at this point. Now, this was May 2014. They said right, so that's the good news. We think you're all great, but we're not going to be in a position to cast this role for another year.
Emma Goswell: 48:07
Oh no, they might jump through the hoops.
Annie Wallace: 48:10
And they said it's because we have to decide which one of you would fit a character that would fit into the show, and then we have to write that character and to create a new character and write them into stories takes nearly a year to do. So you just have to be wait. I have to have to wait and I thought to myself right, so if they pick that young guy, I'm not gonna be in for the running or anything, so on, whatever, and I just left it. And then it was July 2015,. Agent called right, so we've got this thing. Oh, I'd come out to my agent after that, after I'd done the Holyoke's audition, I had a chat with my agent and I says right, you need to know what I've just done and how I'm going to move forward with this. She was fine about it. She didn't give a damn. She was like thank you for telling me. Great, we can work on a different tack now. So she told me yes, okay, so they want to see. They sent me the script through and it was for a middle-aged head teacher, female, and I thought there was only a couple of us in that room that could have fitted that and I went oh, oh, I've got a chance for this, learned the piece. It was four pages of dialogues, quite a lot of dialogue. And then I went along to the audition and there was six other trans women around my age in the room and I went ah, none of the rest of them had been on the open casting, they'd simply cast from other available sources. And it was a proper screen test. It was in front of the camera recorded, with James who played jump ball. It was intimidating. They kept me waiting for 10 days. Then they phoned me at work and said, yeah, they'd really like you for the role.
Emma Goswell: 49:54
Fantastic.
Annie Wallace: 49:55
And everything changed. But prior to that and this is really quite salient to this, because I had done that audition in 2014, I had done the BBC one and had a recall. I had done the Hollyoaks one and had a recall and I went do you know something? Twice? I've been really close and I thought I'm going to get something at some point. So how am I going to address all the people I haven't come out to? And I thought, well, that could work two ways. It could work, yeah, surprise, haha. Or it could work. You know, why are we finding out like this? Why did you think you couldn't tell us? Kind of a friend of you, and so I thought I need to come out. So it just so happened that in 2015, I turned 50. So I went off to my friends. My friends in Spain have a lovely house in the countryside, so me and about 15 other people, we all went out to my friend's house in Spain and we had a great 50th celebration and I sat them all down and I came out to them.
Emma Goswell: 50:55
Wow, how did that go?
Annie Wallace: 50:57
Well, a third of them kind of knew. Nobody spoke about it ever because they knew I didn't talk about it and therefore they respected. Clearly I didn't want to talk about it. So a third of them kind of knew. A third of them suspected but weren't sure, and a third of them had no idea. Lots of questions, lots of interesting interactions. One person said a very inappropriate thing, which I basically just went off and it's always one, but at the end of it it was great, can we start drinking now? And everyone just turned around and it was no problem to any of them. I lost no friends, they accepted it completely. It was interesting because I was now answering questions to people I never thought I would talk to it about. I always put the chanceness of myself on a shelf. It's like, okay, that's something that I did in the past and whatever. So now it's something becomes current. But I did that in me and I'm glad I did it in me, because it meant that when I had the audition and then the successful audition in July, I was able to say to them all guys, I got the part, I'm going to play this role. And so we had a big party and it was all fabulous from that point onwards. And then, of course, all I had to do was to come out to the whole world. So then there was the next coming out. See, I've done it many times, but I'm sure this is a commonality there's not one coming out, it's a series of coming out, absolutely.
Emma Goswell: 52:26
Pretty much everyone in our community. It's constant, isn't it? But I guess it's a different level, isn't it? When you know you're going to be talked about in national media and you're going to be on national television, you kind of have to forewarn people, don't?
Annie Wallace: 52:37
you. Well, there is a bit of that, because, also, you don't want people to find out through the back door. You want to have control over coming out, so that it comes from you, it doesn't come from another source. So the next thing that happened was I had started filming on Holyoaks and then there was going to be this panel. There was a panel for Manchester Pride called Transcripts, and it was a panel of writers and actors who played LGBT roles and it was about how writers approach writing roles for LGBT people and how they're portrayed. So there was Julie and there was Beth Black and a number of other people and writers. So Julie phoned me up and she went do you want to come on this panel? I went I'm not sure, I'm not sure I need to do, and she was like I think you should, because you've kept the Coronation Street stuff a secret for a very long time. And this was her words. And she went I think that you should reclaim your legacy. And I went yeah, jude, but because she'd been out of Cory at that point for just over a year and so she didn't have any. You know, issues about it. I was always nervous about if my involvement with the Hailey story came out. Some people might look weirdly on it, kind of like as if it might affect people's interpretation of the characters, and I didn't want my contribution in any way to affect the appropriate accolades that were going to the performers and the writers. I helped. I was not a core part of it, so I'd never wanted to go look what I did. I was quite happy just to see in the background, knowing what I'd done. But you said what you did was really important and now that I'm out of the rule and I can look at it in retrospect, you should be getting credit for what you did. Well, you're about to come out to the world anyway, and I went. I do it.
Emma Goswell: 54:40
Okay, fine.
Annie Wallace: 54:40
So I did the panel. There was another coming out so I did the panel and it was quite nerve wracking and you know when you're in panels they go okay, left to right, introduce yourself and what you do and that kind of thing. So it's coming down the panel, coming down the panel, and it's quite a big audience and it was pressed in the audience as well and I said my name's Annie Wallace and I was a consultation for the character of Hailey Cropper on Coronation Street and I've never said that ever before. The other people from Corey, the writers in that, who weren't on the panel but were sat on the side, they all went. I'm desperate to get the video of it, because they'd all known and kept my secret for years and now I'd finally come out and they were so happy for me that I was finally saying what I did and getting the credit for it was absolutely lovely. So we this is it we so we spoke about it and how it happened. It's like I'm doing to you. And then of course there was a Daily Mirror reporter in the room. So suddenly I'm being interviewed. But of course, because Jew was there, they interviewed the both of us. So they had kind of an absolute verification that what I was saying was true. And then there was photos taken and the next day I was all over the Daily Mirror the real Hailey Cropper. And this is like I didn't expect this, I didn't expect this. But you know, at the same time I was like you know, I've got nothing, to no regrets. It's all truth. None of it is lies, it's all supportive what they're printing. And then the next one and the final coming out. Seriously, the final coming out was when they announced that I was going to be in Hollyoaks, which was in October, and that was it. No going back, done Delt with Forward.
Emma Goswell: 56:23
So I will just fast forward to the final question, then, which is just any advice for for people listening who may be young Hollyoaks viewers, who are going through what you went through in the mid 80s and not knowing where to turn.
Annie Wallace: 56:36
The young people of today are very lucky because they have they have a thing called peer support, and that's not sitting in a room with adults telling them what they shouldn't shouldn't do. That's actually people of their own age and they're talking about their life experiences. They're talking about what it feels like to be either non binary or or gay or straight, or bi, or asexual or trans, and all the facets of sexuality and gender can be spoken about in a group context, and I can think of nothing better than that to make kids feel accepted and recognized rather than rejected and and depressed. That's a really important thing. Going forward on the subject of coming out, however, every year there's a national coming out day, and I say the same thing every year coming out is really good because you'll find there's so many people who are there to support you and help you, and you're entering a new community in the world in addition to your existing community. However, if it's not right for you, if you're not ready, and if you're happy not being out, don't come out. If you're happy, if you're not happy with the situation, consider it, dip your toe, the water's fine.
Emma Goswell: 57:54
I love that. Dip your toe, the water's fine. Such wise words. A big thank you to Annie for talking to me and also just for being out and proud and visible, because, as we know, representation of our lives in TV and in the media is so, so important. If you want to follow her on the social, she is at Annie Wallace on X and at the Annie Wallace on Instagram. Why don't you give us a follow so that you never, ever, miss an episode? And next episode you'll meet a trans man who's also been busy making sure they're visible and a real role model too, but this time in the world of sport. Arthur Weber was the captain of the first ever football team in Europe to be made up entirely of trans men. He told me that his parents didn't understand what it meant to be trans at first, but they're now completely supportive.
Arthur: 58:46
My dad came to watch me play football a few weeks ago, which, you know, as a 12 year old, I don't think I could have anticipated my dad coming to watch a gay football team, but he did, and so did my grandparents and my siblings, and my mum has turned into an absolutely wonderful advocate for trans people, and so, yeah, I'm very glad that I was able to stick around, because it's definitely all been worth it.