David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am well aware the Senator has put in a lot of work on these and related issues and I greatly respect the Senator. I was just making a cheap crack because I felt like doing it. It lightens the atmosphere. I think the medical model is completely discredited. I am not nearly in tears, it is just that I have a chill and that is why my voice is wavering. I remember on the "Gay Byrne Show" crossing swords with a very nice man who was an endocrinologist, Dr. Austin Darragh. He was mad keen to get hold of gallons of pee from the gay community and wanted my help so that I could litmus test them to see if there was something funny about the pee of gay people. I do not know whether he ever succeeded but I just laughed it out of the place. It was absolute nonsense. This morning on RTE on "Today with Sean O'Rourke", Sean O'Rourke did not know which end of him was up. He was talking about an "indoctrinologist" instead of an endocrinologist - there are plenty of them around the place, particularly in The Iona Institute which is absolutely stuffed with indoctrinologists. I am so old - I will end on this - and things are changing so very rapidly.

This morning I was with one of my consultants in St. Vincent's Hospital, a very nice man. He told me that last week they had a visit from a very distinguished international professor, Professor Stan Monstrey, who is openly gay and a world leader on gender reassignment and all kinds of urological problems and situations. He is from the University of Ghent in Holland. The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, which in my day was one of the most conservative organisations, welcomed him and gave him a special prize. He absolutely wowed them. That shows how things have changed, and in terms of people's perceptions as well. I will not repeat this but it is no harm to have the odd personal reminiscence. When I was about 11 years old I desperately wanted to be loved by a man and society told me authoritatively that the only way one could be loved by a man was by being a woman. I thought I would do my best to turn into a woman. I did not know how to do it but my friends said, "you are half way there", because I was a pretty useful athlete and I had very good pectoral development which looked like breasts. I went to bed at night saying, "Please God, let me wake up in the morning as a woman", but I did not want to be a woman, not at all. It was the last thing I wanted. In that situation where there was a complete dearth of knowledge, I am glad I did not get turned into a woman. That would have been awful, absolutely awful. Just to end on another note and on how curious things are.