Love of My Life, The (ATOM Study Guide)

Gail and Lisette are a transgender lesbian couple in their late 50s-early 60s and are deeply in love. Their marriage is a bold, uncompromising love story that they proudly wish to share with the world.

Both Gail and Lisette were previously married, had children, and for almost fifty years lived out male gender roles that society and their families expected of them as sons, husbands and fathers. They looked happy. But deep down neither was content. They were both in turmoil. They had ‘hidden selves’, wanting to be freed since they were very young. They reached a crisis point in life where it was impossible to keep lying to themselves, to the people they loved, their families, children and friends. In their mid-fifties they both bravely came out as transgender, changed their names assigned at birth and started living openly as women.

Gail and Lisette spent years – and tears – dreaming of becoming who they are today. They fought fierce battles for recognition their whole lives – growing up in conservative suburban Australia, where diversity was rejected. They faced dramatic, life-threatening obstacles; suicidal thoughts and corrective surgery.

The Love of My Life is a journey to the heart of a vivid love story, closely observed. Gail and Lisette waited fifty years to live their life and love freely. Finally, after four marriages and three children, they were able to marry for the first time, as their true selves – two women in love. The couple both recently became grandmothers and are now proudly, Grandma Gail and Grandma Lisette.

Curriculum Links:

The Love of My Life as a class resource is best suited to students at senior VCE level, Units 1-4, although the issues raised certainly resonate with Year 10 Civics and Citizenship criteria. Students study legal systems as part of Civics and Citizenship in the Australian Curriculum, and the links in ACARA are appropriate to senior students of Legal Studies. Subjects applicable to this documentary are:

• Legal Studies
• English (Units 1-4)
• Film and Media Studies