Forget Them Not: The Great Countryhumans Archive

The Trans Experience During WW2

Interview with Australia and South Carolina, 18 April 2022, Transcribed by Toni O'Connell

[recording starts]

Interviewer: Interview with the Countryhumans of South Carolina and Australia about their trans experiences during WW2. Now, it's nice to meet you both.

South Carolina: Likewise.

Australia: Yeah, it's good to meet you, too. I'm glad you let us do this together, even though getting us both in the same place was a pain.

[South Carolina snorts]

South Carolina: Says the country.

Australia: Yes, says the country. Now, do you want to know our full war experiences, or do you want to focus specifically on us being trans?

Interviewer: Whatever you think is relevant to tell the story of your experience.

South Carolina: We met in Papua New Guinea. We were both aware of the other and were both going to be fighting, but we hadn't ever met before. This meant that my first impression of him was him yelling at his general and demanding to fight.

Australia: Yeah, when the Kokoda Track campaign started, I was sent out to Kokoda, and I was expecting to fight like I had during World War One. Instead, my general wanted me to just be there as a moral booster and a propaganda piece. Damien Parer, the war photographer, got to see more combat than I did! They wouldn't let me fight, and yet they insisted that I be filmed wearing a uniform like I was going to! It was so stupid!

Interviewer: That sounds very frustrating, especially if you fought in the First World War.

Australia: It was. I kept protesting, and eventually, they said I could be a nurse if I wanted to help the soldiers so badly, but that's still not what I wanted. I was often laughed off, but eventually, I convinced them to let me fight. Even then, I was usually kept away from the front lines. I still don't really know if it was because I was born a girl or because they didn't want to risk me getting killed with the fears of an invasion by Japanese Empire.

South Carolina: I eventually got them to let Australia fight by pointing out how many female US states fought in the war and how it just made Australia look weak if she didn't fight.

Australia: That's how our friendship began.

South Carolina: Bitching over sexist idiots. We weren't always fighting together, being in different units, but we met up to talk when we could.

Australia: South and I talked a lot-about our lives and just anything and everything. I had been pen pals with California since the 1850s, but...South was different. I could talk to her and not be judged, and despite our age and differences, we had a lot in common. I could vent to her about how frustrating it was looking like a woman.

South Carolina: Ah, yes, the one you ended by saying, "And it's all so stupid because I'm a man."

Australia: That was more terrifying than any battle of the war.

South Carolina: So you can only imagine Oz's surprise when I told him I was a woman.

Australia: A good surprise. It was nice to know I wasn't alone.

South Carolina: It was also nice that we could both help the other. Oz taught me how to talk more like a girl, pitch, and stuff, and I taught him the same about talking like a man.

Australia: With the funny side effect of us swapping accents.

South Carolina [laughing]: Just like we swapped genders.

Australia: Yep. When I finally had the courage to tell my dad, I think he was more concerned that my "male voice" was American.

South Carolina: North Carolina was the same with me when I came out, although only after a while. I think my siblings were really amused by the Australian accent. I can still do it, too! It's free psychological warfare against my Dad.

Interviewer: If you two were doing that during the war, did either of you attempt coming out to anyone?

Australia: Absolutely not. We trusted each other because the other was like us. I eventually told the other Australians in the 50s, and you obviously know about how I came out publicly in 1970 after my top surgery. Still, during the war, there were bigger concerns.

South Carolina: I think some of my other siblings knew before your public coming out as well, right?

Australia: Cali was told, and that's when she told me that they were neither gender, and I think some of the others on her coast knew, but I'm not sure. Word got around, but not a lot of people acknowledged it, either due to prejudice or just the fact that they didn't know if they were supposed to know. When I came out publicly-now that was a big fuss. Luckily, no one wanted to be the idiot to start World War Three, so no one really said anything in UN meetings, but there was tension for a long time over it.

South Carolina: My coming out was less dramatic.

Australia: Your coming out caused a riot.

South Carolina: Yeah, but fewer countries cared at that point because you were out. I came out to the world and my family about the same time. Ozzie was a big help in getting me to work up the courage to do so.

Australia: It was the least I could do for all the help you gave me.

Interviewer: I'm glad you two had each other. It seemed like it helped a lot.

Australia: It did. More than words can describe.

Interviewer: How long did you two spend together during the war, since you fought for different units?

Australia: Well, as you might know, after Papua New Guinea, the American high command was...less than eager to have us Aussies fighting with them. They just kinda left us at Papua New Guinea for a lot of the war, and since my prime minister at the time had given the Americans control over the Australian forces, there was little we could do on the Pacific Front, that is. I know many Australian countryhumans transferred to Europe after that, eager for combat, but I felt I had to stay in the Pacific to show my people that just because Japanese Empire had attacked us, that didn't mean we were weak.

South Carolina: My contributions during Papua New Guinea weren't even with a South Carolina unit. I was actually fighting with Michigan and Wisconsin's boys. So when the Americans were going to move on, I asked the high command if I could stay behind and supervise the Australians. It didn't make me popular with them, but it allowed Australia and I to stick together for almost the entirety of the war.

Australia: We didn't do a whole lot of fighting after that, but we got to talk, play around with names we wanted to have, and become a lot more confident in our genders.

South Carolina: Who knew it would take a world war for us to find someone who related to our greatest struggle?

Interviewer: When did you first realize you were trans?

South Carolina: 1751. As a part of the system with Dad and the others-you know about Dad's DID, right?

Interviewer: I do.

South Carolina: Well, because of that, the idea of a woman being trapped in the body of a man wasn't that unfamiliar to me. When I got my body, I prayed to god that he would bless me with a woman's body. Instead, I got stuck with a male body. I always knew, but...I just couldn't, not then.

Australia: For me, it was around the 1870s. I'm not sure what triggered it, but one day, I just kinda woke up and knew I was a man. But I thought it was shameful and sinful and wrong. So, I did my best to bury it down and hide it. Then I met South, and, well, you know that story. But when I met her, I thought, "We're either victims of a kinda discrimination worse than the stuff I face for being a girl, or we're delusion together."

South Carolina: Obviously, as you know, we're both completely delusional.

[Australia and South Carolina both begin laughing, and the Interviewer lets out a small chuckle as well]

Interviewer: I am glad you two found each other. Now, unless you two have anything else you want to discuss, all of my questions have been answered.

South Carolina: I'm good? Ozzie?

Australia: I am good as well. Thank you so much for this opportunity to speak.

Interviewer: Thank y-

[recording ends]