Rocky Horror Show creator Richard O’Brien has opened up about his desire to be more feminine, asserting himself to be about 70 per cent male, 30 per cent female.
Speaking to BBC Radio4, he revealed he used to be ashamed of his longing to have female qualities but said he had been taking hormone oestrogen pills for the past 10 years.
“I was six-and-a-half and I said to my big brother that I wanted to be the fairy princess when I grew up, he told the show.
“The look of disdain on his face made me pull down the shutters. I knew that I should never ever say that out loud again.”
O’Brien has called New Zealand home since moving here with his parents at the age of 10. He officially became a New Zealand citizen in 2011, at a ceremony in Hamilton.
Talking about his hormone pills, he told Radio4 he was happy with the results and had no inclination to take things further with a gender reassignment surgery.
“It takes the edge off the masculine, testosterone-driven side of me and I like that very much,” he said.
“I think I’ve become a nicer person in some ways, slightly softer.
“For the first time in my life, I’ve started to put on a little bit of weight, which I like.
“I don’t want to pretend to be something that I’m not.
“Anton Rodgers, the actor, said ‘you’re the third sex’, and I thought that’s quite nice. I quite like that position.”
O’Brien said that rather than believing people were either male or female, he preferred to think we were all on a spectrum.
“It’s my belief that we are on a continuum between male and female,” he said.
“There are people who are hardwired male and there are people who are hardwired female, but most of us are on that continuum and I believe myself probably to be about 70 per cent male, 30 per cent female.”
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