The child loves to dress up and play with other girls in the street and create pieces of coiffed art during boring classes. It dreams of enrolling at a school for housekeeping after finishing elementary school. At its brother’s restaurant it already enjoys hours of quality time with the cleaning and service ladies, the whispering, the chats about female topics. None of this surprising for a girl born in the conservative Eastern Dutch province at the end of the nineteen fifties. There is just one problem. The child’s name is Hans and it is, strictly biologically speaking, a boy…
After years of internal conflict that see him suicidal, finally at the age of fifty plus Hans is reborn as Hanne. In her autobiography Hanne would like to share hope and encouragement. She also hopes to educate people who are not directly affected about what transsexuality or Gender Dysphoria, as it is medically termed, is – most of all she wants to break the silence that she has built up around herself and been living in for decades due to a false sense of shame.

Wagenvoord, Hanne: Ich bin nicht verrückt. Ich bin ein Mädchen!
ISBN: 978-3-937772-33-2, paperback, 204 pages, 14,90 Euro

“Step by step I ran towards the red light, blinking as the train was rapidly approaching. Closer and closer. All of a sudden a deafening whistle cut through the silence. Split seconds before I wanted to take the leap, the leap into my freedom, my salvation. Screeching drilled into my brain, broke right into me simultaneously with a flashing, bright light. It was as though someone was yelling at me to stop this nonsense. Out of reflex I stepped back and lost my footing, fell backwards over a protruding stone. In the wake of the passing train I fell to the ground. I was shocked. I felt tears welling up and was shaking heavily through my whole body. Motionless I lay there and stared at the blue sky. The tears had blurred my vision but I could make out a few birds flying overhead.”