A gentleman, he was actually a member of parliament, and his office was in the same building as the pharmacy I worked in, and his wife came in and said, ‘My husband wants to do the ring test on your baby to see what you’re having.’ And I said, go for it, you know, put out the stomach, it’s all there, go for it. And he predicted that I was having a little boy. His wife assured me that he had never been wrong, he’d been doing for 30 years. And when I gave birth to a little girl, the man was devastated. I just about had to take the nappy off to prove it, you know, that Nick was a little girl. But I’d love to be able to reach that man now and say you were right. And put his record that to being perfect.  

My name is Dianne Lawrence. I’m 60 years old and a mother of two sons, and my eldest son is transgender.  

Nick from a very early age was very tomboyish. Didn’t like girly clothes, didn’t like frilly things. So, matter of fact, I actually had to pay him once to wear a frilly shirt to impress his auntie. I had no idea what Nick was going through as a teenager, but I was aware that she had issues with her emotions and ups and downs. I put a lot of it down to teenage hormones, you know, you do get a bit out of whack. Tried to feed him vitamin B, but he thought I was going to turn him into a drug addict. That was hilarious, that argument.  

Yeah, I just didn’t realise that my situation with Nick was probably worse than what was normal. But none of my friends sort of had girls that age, so I had nothing to compare it to. Nick opened up to me about being lesbian, when he was around 15 or 16. I was a little bit devastated when he told me about it. I didn’t understand it. So, I had to do a lot of research into it, I suppose, just to educate myself, because I’d already suspected it before he came out and told me. He was very harsh the way he told me, basically said ‘I’m gay, Mum, deal with it.’  

Nick always has been highly intelligent, but couldn’t settle to any particular career. We tried a few different things, personal trainers, you name it. All sorts of jobs. He got offered an apprenticeship as a motor mechanic. And it just hit his stride just loved it. That was really the start for Nick, because right up to that being gay, there’s still a lot of prejudice out there about you know, girls working in men’s worlds and things like that.  

I know he’s been on the Ts as they call them, the injections and that, for four years now. But he put off telling me because I was in a major stress situation myself, and he didn’t want to add to my stress. He put it off as long as he could? But he said that he had started to see changes in himself. And he thought if I don’t tell Mum real soon, she’s going to get one hell of a shock. So, yeah, he came over and sat me down and told me.  

It was a bit nerve wracking for me. I just thought, what next? What’s going to happen next? And Nick explained it all to me. He was just brilliant. And at the end of the conversation, I was quite happy to see that the path he was going on seemed to be what he wanted.  

One of the biggest annoyances that Nick has, if people call him a her, or call him by his original name, which was Nicole, but I’m the only one in the world that’s allowed to call Nick a girl or her, which I frequently do, and when I’m angry, Nicole always comes out.  

I was pretty upset in the sense that I’d lost my daughter to have my own little girl, that was that’s my every mum’s dream, and to have grandchildren, and all that sort of thing. That was very hard for me to deal with. But I couldn’t show that to Nick, because Nick had enough of his own things to deal with. He didn’t need to deal with a mum that was losing the plot a bit. I just kept it to myself and dealt with it my own way, which I always have done.  

I do have some awesome friends that I did discuss it with. I thought, what if they don’t accept Nick the way he is? I think I’m really blessed to have a really magnificent group of friends, because everybody was just so supportive. And they said, ‘Well, if that’s what makes Nick happy and makes you happy, makes everybody happy. It’s good.’ 

In a way I know I did think to myself, I was glad my dad had gone. Like, my mother died when I was very young, so I never had a mum, but I don’t think my dad could have dealt with it. He never even knew that Nick was gay. I just, he’s a real old time Australian, pushy, you know, farmer, shearer, and I, I have no idea whether … how he would have reacted.  

Nick warned me right from the start. Told me stage by stage what transition would happen and in usually what period of time, you know, so I’ve had no surprises as such. It’s been interesting to see the changes, like the hereditary side of it. where as a female Nick had a full head of hair, magnificent head of hair, but now as man, he’s taken up the genes from the men’s side of our family, and he’s going bald.  

He said he would get more masculine facial features, his body would grow, it would become more masculine. Like he’s got really nice big shoulders, big muscles. And his facial features. He’s got a much stronger jaw, that it doesn’t have the nice cheekbones anymore. They’re gone. He’s got a beard, which I don’t like. If he ever goes to sleep around me, I’m going to shave it off. But yeah, that’s his choice. And weirdly enough, his feet grew.  

Before this happened to Nick or Nick decided to go down this journey. I had never heard of it. I’d seen because Nick is gay, I’d been out in the gay group with Nick, you know, I’ve gone to The Court with them, and Connie’s, and yeah, I mix with all their friends, they’re all awesome people. And you do see people that like men dressed up as girls, and they’re trans … I can’t think of the word. Transvestites. That’s the word, Transvestites. But I had never heard of transgender before.  

Nick has just changed so much. He’s so stable as a person. There’s not this flighty up one minute, down the next and no raging hormones I suppose. It was just because Nick was so frustrated with his life, I think the way it was.  

Nick set up Trans Men WA because there was nothing here for the young ones coming up. As far as transitioning, Nick transitioned fairly late in life, but early 30s. Some transition even later, but generally the kids today are knowing in their early teens that they want to be a boy or a girl. And Nick found that there was no support or anything in WA. So, Nick thought, well, I’ll do it myself.  

Now, Nick’s making speeches, is doing lectures to university students. He did a lecture recently to a stadium full of professors and psychologists and teaching them about transgender and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s my kid.’ Just so confident. I just love to see him doing that. The person that Nick used to be as a girl, that person could never have done anything like that.