At 3.30pm on Tuesday 28th of March, 1972 I was born via caesarean at The Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva Fiji.
Today is my 50th birthday, the only thing in my life I have no control over is my age, 50 is a milestone, or perhaps it’s just another day, but for me there are tinges of sad memories of familial rejection and brothers and sisters that I never grew up with.
Sadly my mother feared transsexuality was a contagious disease, a common enough myth in the 1970s, so she sent me at a very young age to live with my Great-Grandparents. I was raised by my great-grandfather John Bloomfield Kamea, he was half Tongan and half Jewish, and my Great-Grandmother Eliza Mitchell Kamea, a half European and half Fijian Lady.
Grandpa was a former Seventh Day Adventist Pastor and Nana was a Sabbath School teacher so my upbringing was deeply religious, so on the eve of every birthday I would pray in earnest for God to turn me back into a girl, but every birthday I arose unchanged with Gender Dysphoria, by the age of sixteen I realised I would have to fix things myself, and I did when I was 18, so the past 32 years mark the anniversaries of happiness because I no longer have Gender Dysphoria – This is why I mainly celebrate my trans birthdays because September 1 marks the anniversary of my inner peace and happiness, but that is a story for another day.
So on my birthday I would like to give thanks to the beautiful people who raised me, and armed me with the strength and self-respect and good manners that I would need in the dark years ahead when I transitioned to Katherine. I will always be grateful to them.
We are the sum of our friends, I have been richly blessed by friends who are good and kind and have shown support and love – despite my many faults; on my 50th birthday I would like to give thanks for them and all the beautiful human beings who have touched and enriched my life.
On a spiritual level I have always been guided and protected by angels or ancestors, or something that I cannot properly explain. But on my 50th birthday I would like to give thanks to the Universe who have sent them to watch over me.
I am so grateful to be alive when so many other transgender people I have known over the years have died. On my 50th birthday I pay my respects to their memories and pray their anguish in life has found peace in their eternal rest.
I am so grateful to witness so much change in regards to human rights for my community in my lifetime, on my 50th birthday I give thanks to the country that I live in and the good people alive and no longer alive who have contributed to our equal rights.
I belong to the first era of transgender people in history who are able through science change our bodies to become who we feel inside. On my 50th birthday I pay my respects and give thanks to my trans ancestors who have come before me who have lived and died and have paved a way for our existence to be easier.
To my community, on my 50th birthday I give thanks for giving me a place to feel safe and home, thank you for giving me a sense of identity and belonging.
Finally to myself, on my 50th birthday I would like to give thanks to myself that I had the inner strength and the courage to stand by my beliefs and follow through with sheer determination to find a place where I could be happiest as Katherine, I am grateful to myself for the courage and strength and love and kindness it took to survive in a world that was not always loving or kind. I give thanks my strength has allowed me to commit so many memories of past horrors and so much violence both lateral and environmental behind me without making me bitter or angry.
On my 50th birthday I promise to be more forgiving towards those who have hurt me, and be more respectful towards things I cannot comprehend, and I promise to never change the essence of who I am no matter what the future has in store for me.
Hear my prayers, wish me well I am 50 years old today.
