"I had a recurring dream when I was younger." "I am on the Titanic and it is about to sink." "I am in a hallway   covered in red velvet." "Floor, walls and ceiling." "A red velvet wall comes at me from behind." "I am unable to run away from it." "I realize I am doomed." "The onrushing water will overtake me." "I am going down with the ship because I am a man." "ALL ABOUT MY FATHER" "Hi!" "Hello." "Let me just put something on." "It's cold out." "I feel armed when carrying a camera." "I have this weapon, with which I document everything I do." "Roll camera." "Got your jacket?" "MY FATHER" "I feel like I'm in Hollywood." "It feels good to get started." "I've been a little anxious about this, actually." "The older you get, the more nervous you get." "About what?" "About performing." "We are documenting reality." "That is often very different from ..." "Yes, but this is very important." "I often wonder why I get so anxious." "This will be fun." "I think so, too." "I'm heading to work." "Now?" "Not really." "But I can pretend, for you." "This won't be easy." "I don't think dad wants me to document how I perceive his world." "He will want his version emphasized." "To prove that he was right, in spite of everything." "There he is, gone with the wind." "The door isn't even locked." "Hope you don't mind the camera." "No problem." "I'm hoping for a new career in movies." "I can't read that." "L?" "No ..." "K?" "How do you see with glasses?" "I have them here." "You didn't see very well without them." "Does your license specify ..." "I wear driving glasses." "Now I see a T and an L." "That's better." "Do you have any veins?" "I know I used to." "When you think about how different people are ..." "It's no wonder we are different in other areas, too." "Bull's-eye!" "Feel its warmth Reach out your arms" "As it welcomes us again ..." "MY MOTHER" "We had the same circle of friends, and ended up falling in love." "It was very exciting for me." "I thought he was very handsome." "A friend of mine warned me against marrying him." "She felt there was something about him." "I felt the same thing." "There was something I couldn't quite grasp." "I became pregnant very shortly after our wedding." "That was not very appropriate." "I felt something had happened that shouldn't have happened." "Elisabeth!" "The first time I held her, I was worried she would break." "My hands seemed so huge and strong." "One twitch and I would crush that tiny baby." "And I cursed the fact that boys are not raised with dolls." "I think she tricked me." "I really do." "We had things to work out in our relationship." "I was in medical school." "We had agreed to wait with children." "I asked Liv if she knew when she was ovulating." "She said she was in full control." "There was nothing to worry about." "And then she immediately became pregnant." "Even!" "You were conceived over Christmas." "We forgot to bring condoms." "It's true." "But we agreed that it was all right." "In that sense you were much more planned than Elisabeth." "MY SISTER" "I admired dad." "He could do anything." "He was a carpenter." "He wrote poems and plays and acted them out for us." "He fixed things at home." "He could do so many things." "So I feel I had an exciting childhood." "I knew nothing about it before we got married." "But one day I forgot my work keys." "I didn't want to borrow any,   so I decided to go home and get my own." "We had many locked doors." "When I got home, I discovered the door was locked from inside." "I could not understand why." "He yelled for me to wait." "He unlocked the door and rushed into the bathroom." "All the curtains were drawn." "I thought he had a mistress in there." "I had no clue as to what it could be." "She may have cried." "I can't remember." "But it was not easy for her." "She struggled with it." "I told him we would talk about it when I got back from work." "I had a lot to think about." "I didn't understand what this was." "I remember coming home from work to talk about it." "I said something like, if you love me you will change your ways." "And I asked him to stop doing it." "And he said that he could." "I promised that I would stop." "She cried?" "Yes." "She wouldn't take it." "She told me I had to stop." "I promised that I would." "I was humbled and humiliated." "But he continued doing it behind my back, with my clothes." "It took a while for me to realize that he had kept it up." "I told her that I had started again." "I couldn't help it." "We worked out an arrangement where she would know when I did it." "But she did not want to see me." "I wouldn't have minded her company." "I missed that." "I showed her some pictures." "Wanted her to like them." "But she didn't." "I didn't want to see him as a woman." "I didn't think ..." "I had married Esben, not Esther." "I found it difficult." "I tried to bring her to meetings with other wives of transvestites." "I wanted us to be in this together." "She joined me to Oslo once, but never made it to the meeting." "You went with him on trips, right?" "What do you mean?" "Trips with other transvestites." "Yes, I did, actually." "Once, I think." "It was a very good experience." "I felt that dad and I really bonded." "It was a nice experience." "I cannot remember Liv ever expressing   any appreciation for this side of me." "She accepted that we have visitors, and things like that ..." "But progress was as sluggish as in that hallway on the Titanic." "I felt that I was drowning." "I've never believed in easy solutions." "We were married." "We had chosen this." "We had two children." "I didn't want the family to break up." "Divorce was not an option." "I wanted to keep the family together and work it out." "But it became very complicated." "It just got worse and worse." "The story of me and my predilection is not a happy one." "My female side was miserable during this period." "If it had happened today, I would have told Liv   that we were wasting our time." "It may have been good for you kids that we stayed together,   but not for us." "At least not for me." "We had so very little in common." "I feel ..." "This is not easy for me." "I feel a great deal of sorrow." "I feel sad about the life I have had." "About the bad choices I have made." "I made wrong choices the entire way." "I hoped everything would work out, but it didn't." "In a sense ..." "I believed that somewhere deep inside ..." "I believed that life could be wonderful." "I saw the contours." "I believed that." "Believed, believed, believed ..." "Then I fell in love with another woman." "And I was shocked." "I tried desperately to go back to that which I was supposed to believe." "But then I met Elsa, and realized it was possible." "MY STEPMOTHER" "If you ignore your emotions, ignore some pain you feel,   you begin living a non-authentic life." "That's what Esben was doing." "He could not present his true self to the world." "After he met me, he was more able to be himself." "We realized there would be consequences." "You, Elisabeth and Liv would be hurt   by his decision to leave Liv." "The advice, or demand, we received was:" "We had to make sure it would be worth all that pain." "I was an irritant, especially to Elsa." "She went nuts when I borrowed her hair dryer." "It was the only one we had, and suddenly I couldn't use it." "Nothing was good enough." "She may be right." "She could only do wrong." "She and I are very different." "I had trouble relating to Elisabeth as a person." "Even today, Elisabeth and I live in separate worlds." "As a parent, you bond with those children you can relate to." "But I could not relate to Elisabeth." "Dad was a passive partner." "He did not participate at all." "I think he reacted to the hair dryer incident." "I think he said something." "I seem to remember that he supported me." "But that almost made it worse." "It was nice that he supported me." "But that's when I realized this was hopeless." "Because that was when she yelled:" "I'll never let you get between your father and me!" "This gets published on July 22." "Fine." "You've answered these questions a thousand times before." "Probably." "Can you handle one more time?" "The first time I put on a dress, I was around eight years old." "I can draw that dress for you." "Where was this?" "At home." "In the attic?" "In the attic of a big, empty house." "I tried the dress on, and it felt right." "My parents and siblings would go out." "I would choose to stay home." "I always chose to stay home." "Because I knew when I was alone at home, I could be a woman." "And I was." "I tried on all my mother's clothes." "And hung them all back?" "Yes. "I'm a master of disguise."" "No one ever caught on." "Then something dramatic happened." "Over time the cross-dressing became erotic in nature." "Something which had merely been exciting, had now become erotic." "I had my first orgasm in such a situation." "And had trouble getting mom's underwear clean." "What did you do?" "Washed it!" "Used the iron to dry it, and put it back in place." "And they didn't find out?" "Why don't parents notice such things?" "Because it is so inconceivable." "Another day dawns ..." "Haven't you brushed your teeth?" "No." "I can tell." "Don't say things like that." "That just upsets me." "What is going to happen now?" "I am going to change my gender appearance." "My boobs have grown." "It happens to men my age." "Fine by me." "Here is the process:" "No one ever appears naked in public, with a few exceptions." "Our gender is determined by our outer appearance." "That appearance dictates how the world relates to us." "If the world sees someone wearing a multicolored leather outfit,   they know there's a motorcycle around the corner." "The appearance tells a story." "Male and female appearance differs greatly." "A female appearance tells us there is a female body underneath." "But with 99.999 % of those women, you never see the body." "You only assume it is there." "So one should be able to live in this world as a woman,   without necessarily having a woman's body." "Is this some Michelangelo statue?" "Let's do this step by step." "Take your time, but keep it snappy." "Do you know what he has done with his crotch, Even?" "He just told us." "I was just wondering if you had ever asked him." "Other transvestites have asked me." "I have a good method." "Is it so you can sit and pee?" "Yes, and so that I don't have a bulge." "And if I get aroused, my dress won't look like a tent." "Do you wish you could be naked as a woman?" "Yes, if I could just snap my fingers." "But I'd have to be able to snap back to being a man again, also." "Because I need to be able to express myself both ways." "You may dress as a woman, but you will never be a woman to me." "No matter how you are dressed." "If you are going to relate to me,   you can't only use your own personal experiences." "Then you'd only tell your side of the story." "That would be sad for me." "Why?" "I'm not a man in women's clothing!" "What are you?" "A woman in women's clothing." "Where is the man then?" "He is not perceivable in that situation." "Why isn't he?" "I still call you "dad"." "And you can feel free to do that." "Even when we're out in public." "That is no longer a problem." "I have nothing to hide." "I am your father." "But your father is also a woman." "That does not make me any less of a man." "This seems logical to you,   because you have followed your own development." "Should I view you as a 15-year-old?" "No." "View me as I am today, at 26." "Then you should view me as I view myself at 52." "You don't understand me, either, but you have made up an opinion." "I would appreciate it   if you could see that having a father who is a man,   is not necessarily opposed to him also being a woman." "But a "dad" cannot be a woman." "No." "Your dad is your dad." "But dads are nothing but a delivery system for sperm cells." "That's all dads are." "Biologically speaking, sure." "That's all they are." "We run around spreading our seed." "That's all dads are." "But to children the "dad" is an institution." ""Dad" is more than just sperm cells." "To continue this discussion, you must define "man" and "woman"." "That could take weeks." "A family member who perceives you, does not only do so intellectually." "There is also an emotional aspect." "Your son is documenting his life with his dad." "He is using his own experiences as a reference point." "Maybe your predilection can only be understood intellectually." "But that will most likely take some time." "You are always ahead of everyone else,   because you live inside your own body." "I can understand that you consider me   something more than a sperm donor." "I understand that the term "dad" embodies more than that." "I understand that it is a challenge   to have a dad who expresses himself as a woman." "But I would also hope, as you grow older,   that you are able to understand this better   than when you were ten." "My father was also a "dad"." "For better or for worse." "He was a doctor, which isn't necessarily a predilection." "Although it could be in his case." "But he was a doctor." "I was privileged enough to be able to enter into his space." "I found out, understood, what it was." "I was privileged, in that sense." "I was able to enter into my father's space,   and thereby grew to understand him better." "But it's easier to be son of a doctor than son of a transvestite." "That's a key point." "We all have an idea of what it is like to be a man or a woman." "That has to do with our subjective history." "You may say you are a woman, but you are not a woman like me." "You are not a woman." "But I cannot deny that you experience yourself as a woman." "I do not consider you a woman, based on my reference points." "And Even does not consider you a woman, based on his definition." "There are many ways of defining what a woman is." "That is a theoretical debate which only leads me into loneliness." "I wonder what it must be like for children of transsexuals." "Growing up with a father who suddenly changes sex." "I don't think dad would do that." "That would be tragic." "Yes, it would." "Because then the male side dies, in a sense." "And that, I feel, would be very sad." "Many, many years ago we went on Easter vacation." "And I decided:" "If anyone is going to present themselves to the world   as a transvestite, it's going to be me." "I knew I could take it." "And I knew that every human expression needs a figurehead." "You introduce yourself to the world." "Then it's up to the world to accept what you have introduced." "Did those gay jackets come in yet, Odd?" "That's everything." "And the car keys." "I didn't know he could move about so freely on the streets of Grimstad." "Is my hair all right?" "Try that one." "Better." "Not like that." "Over your shoulders." "And get all the tangles out." "A stole." "It should be on the side, like this." "I think he looks nice." "She." "You think I look like a man?" "No." "Then don't say "he"." "Did I say that?" "It can be either an evening dress or a cocktail dress." "Take this." "I can't get this one on." "Can't you get it on?" "I like it, but it doesn't fit." "I'd love to have one like that." "Let me just comb my hair ..." "You're quite conceited, dad." "Yes, I'm vain." "I like looking good." "You look yourself in the mirror every minute." "After being Pirelli for a while, he likes being Esben." "And vice versa." "It works both ways." "But quantitatively,   he seems to be more woman than man now." "It's so ..." "Much more complicated." "Make-up, clothing ..." "Such a hassle." "All that female stuff." "It can get quite tiring." "Pantyhose, dresses, belts, jewelry, hair, make-up ..." "Sometimes it's nice not to care how you look." "It feels good to be outside." "Esben dreams of being accepted and loved as Pirelli." "Yet, as you say, you can only view him as a father and a man." "That is a very powerful conflict." "Esben wants me to consider him the same,   even though he expresses himself in different ways." "I happen to be heterosexual." "I am attracted to the masculine in men." "I like Esben's strength, masculinity, intelligence ..." "His willpower and determination." "I am very fond of Esben." "Here he comes." "Hello." "That was a quick boat cleaning!" "Is your mascara running?" "Watch out for that." "We're talking about you, dad." "Are you surprised?" "Do you mind us talking about you?" "I am glad I wasn't here." "Why?" "This has become quite emotional for me." "It is interesting that Elisabeth's experience is so different." "She feels stepped on." "Does she not accept some responsibility herself?" "She has also been an agent." "In what sense?" "She was a fairly bitchy teenager." "You were also a fairly bitchy stepmother." "Maybe." "But I wasn't the only bitchy one." "There are two sides to this." "I am not a bitchy person in general." "Elisabeth brought out the bitchiness in me." "As a therapist, we work with such issues." "But we cannot analyze our own lives." "We all have blind spots." "I can keep my feet planted and sway back and forth." "Could someone bring me that table?" "Hello?" "I have drawn some sketches." "Let me see!" "From your dream." "The Titanic." "Here is the hallway." "This red drapery in the foreground has swallowed your leg." "In my dream everything is red and my legs sink into that red." "I chose to leave this part gray, and paint the shadow red instead." "I hadn't seen that one." "The bodies in the water." "I drew three of them." "Yes, all the dead men!" "Turn it this way, and it gets lighter." "Have you done anything like this before?" "No, not quite like this." "Powerful." "Have you shown them to Elsa?" "No." "It's exciting how you have entered into my dream." "Very touching." "You have found something in there that I recognize." "Let's continue." "I am a merry sailor Who loves the sound of the sea ..." "Would you like to sail?" "I'll be the crew, you be the skipper." "Look how fast they sail!" "Look at the sailboard!" "Ready to come about, Elsa?" "Let go of the jib." "Pull hard." "Well done!" "That's the right direction." "It's all about interacting with nature." "Do it wrong, and it will snap back at you." "Do it right, and you will experience smooth sailing." "I called Even." "I was concerned." "I don't want this to be a film about the trauma of divorce." "Don't get me wrong, divorces are serious business." "They are painful, but they are not uncommon." "This is supposed to be an uncommon family saga." "Let's talk about the 16 years after the divorce." "I think we need to figure out ..." "We need to discuss Even and Elisabeth's sense   of not being important in my life." "They feel that I was willing to sacrifice anything   to get my way, in a sense." "Who was that?" "Careful, I have a backache." "Had to see a chiropractor today." "Mind if I make a salad?" "I just came home, and I'm starving." "Let's go into the living room." "That might be the best place." "I know Even has talked a great deal about the divorce." "At the time I was inadequate." "Unable to get to the root of it." "And I am very sorry about that." "But I cannot change that." "Nope." "I find that very sad." "That particularly affected you." "But I couldn't help it." "I hope you can forgive me." "This isn't something we discuss." "I don't think about it daily." "But I often come back to it when these things are brought up." "We were wondering if there was a specific stimuli ..." "One stimulus." "Whatever." "When a certain nerve is touched, it gets very explosive." "That is something I would like to discuss at some point." "I have never received any sort of an apology for that." "That might make things better." "I know Even seems to think so." "I'm not sure, but he may be right." "I don't think any of us know for sure." "You have worked through everything from your own childhood." "Don't talk with salad in your mouth." "You have worked through that." "What do you mean?" "My ear just popped!" "That reminds me of a story:" "Two men were sitting on a bench." "One said, "What do you think about the world situation?"" "The other answered: "I don't know." "I have something in my eye."" "My ear is better now." "What do you need, Even?" "What do you mean?" "You have been preoccupied with all the painful things." "What do you mean, painful?" "What we were just talking about." "Sure, but ..." "It's a part of our history that's never been discussed before." "What do you mean?" "You just say "I couldn't help it." Case closed." "Then you go back out in pursuit of your mission." "While you, Elisabeth and I know that you won't talk about this again." "Tell me what you think." "Not what Elisabeth or I think." "That is what I think." "I don't think this conflict will go away,   until you have worked it through to the same extent   that you have worked through the other issues in your life." "What are you feeling right now?" "This is a ..." "A sacred moment for me, in a sense." "I feel elated." "I find this moment very ... beautiful." "Few, if anyone, is more suited to write about, talk about,   to raise our gender awareness, than Elsa and Esben/Esther." "It has been a joy and an inspiration to work with you!" "Uncommon people should see themselves in that which is common." "But common people should also see themselves in the uncommon." "But we are divided." "We live in separate worlds." "That is wrong, it causes isolation." "Regular people become isolated from irregular impulses." "All bodies are different." "It has to do with how we manage our lives." "Mankind has been, and is still, classified by gender." "We can easily say that both men and women are all right." "Those two groups represent the vast majority." "No problem." "But we cannot ignore those who are both man and woman." "Or who are neither man nor woman." "We could go on forever." "Yes, we could." "We have asked someone else to share their impressions of the book:" "Tone Marie Hansen, head of the National Transsexual Union." "This has been a good book for me, as a transsexual, to read." "It is not every day that professionals   understand, accept and love you for the gender you are." "I would have more trouble being married to a football fan." "The day of my christening." "Before, dad used to be ... dad." "But that is less the case now." "He has changed." "Gone through a process." "I can understand that it is important   for him to live this out." "He can do that as much as he wants." "As long as he doesn't end up as a woman, and nothing else." "I am very fond of Esben." "We have a wonderful life together." "It would take a great deal for me to turn my back on that." "But there are limits to how rewarding it can be for me." "How so?" "If it becomes existentially impossible for me   to live with a woman, and not a man, I may have to move on." "In all its skinless entirety" "The nerve is a part of me" "It does not count as a part ..." "You feel skinless because everything you say can be used against you?" "I don't mean it in self defense." "I just mean I feel vulnerable." "I have no protective layer." "Can you explain that?" ""In all my skinless entirety ..." That's what I wrote." "I cannot explain it." "That's just the way it is." "It's painful." "What?" "To exist, I guess." "So I gave birth to this poem,   which is both angry and sad." "In some strange way you have to answer for what you are." "And that makes you feel skinless." "Do you feel much guilt?" "Long ago I stopped defending my choices,   and started doing what felt right for me." "Who has the right to attack me for how I choose to live my life?" "Not even my own son." "But you have the right to your own opinion." "I most certainly do." "And I have the right to a reaction." "It is my right as your child,   that when I tell you something, you owe me a response." "Of course." "But you are too young to govern my life." "I can't govern your life, but ..." "Hello?" "Hi!" "At some point, Even, you will grow past me." "And you have every right to voice your discontent." "You can say that I have made choices you would never make." "Don't I have the right to an opinion, to a response now?" "Of course, but ..." "If not, that would be absurd." "If I couldn't ask my dad not to do something." "I agree." "But the difference for me ..." "Yes, we are father and son." "But we are also two adults." "That makes for a different type of exchange." "I shouldn't have to defend myself,   but simply tell you who I am." "I have no problem understanding you being a transvestite." "I understand that you are much more than a man in women's clothing." "I understand that is your predilection." "And that is completely separate from the divorce and all those issues." "But still ..." "I also have the right to believe that you are   simply a man who likes to wear women's clothing." "Because you're still my dad, right?" "Yes." "I could never accept Esther Pirelli as my father." "So I have to try to look beyond that facade." "That is becoming ever more difficult." "Even your voice changes." "I understand that you find that difficult." "I can see that." "And if you think I am indifferent, you are wrong." "I am not." "Couldn't you have waited?" "How long?" "Until we could follow your thinking." "Understand you." "First you were here, then there." "Taken it a little slower." "Not bang the big drum." "That's so naive." "You seem to have plenty of time, Even." "I do." "Yes." "But I don't." "I have all the time in the world." "I don't." "I have 2/3 of my life behind me." "I'm running out of time." "I am at an age where people have started dying around me." "I am not ready for that." "I have things I want to accomplish." "What is it you want to accomplish?" "What's the big hurry?" "I have a mission in life to complete." "Something dear to my heart." "Something I am passionate about." "I wish to speak for the uncommon people." "Not only to the tyranny of conservative thought,   but to the tyranny of the majority." "I wish to eradicate diagnoses which label small children,   simply because they express their gender in an unusual way." "I want more people to be proud of who they are." "Even though their surroundings label them sinful, sick or criminal." "So I don't have much time." "We all do things that hurt others." "If we do it in order to hurt them, we are simply evil." "But if we do it not to hurt them, but for some other purpose ..." "It can still be interpreted as a deliberate act." "I am aware of that." "And that can be quite painful." "I hear what Elsa says." "That she is afraid of losing her husband." "And you are afraid of losing your father." "And I have no guarantee to offer either one of you." "Do you want Even to stop considering you a father figure?" "To a certain extent." "But I don't want him to ..." "I hope he has ..." "I hope part of me lives on in him." "That he carries a part of me." "Just like I feel a part of my father in me." "But I also want him to be independent of me." "Because some day I will no longer be around." "Hopefully long before him." "Want to do something else now?" "Sure." "How about a time-lapse?" "Are you going out?" "Yes." "Out on the town." "Oh, my God." "I'm going to throw this away." "That was a good interview." "I thought so, too." "I was honest." "Are you all right?"