>> ‘I used to be a gay man – I was burnt alive and now I’m a beautiful woman’
Elle est belle, comme toutes les femmes, fière de sa silhouette et de ses mèches blondes, mais pourtant, derrière ce regard coquin, Tori cache un terrible traumatisme qui l’aura d’ailleurs incité à franchir un pas décisif et changer de vie.
En effet, avant d’être Tori Banks, cette jeune femme de 23 ans s’appelait Russell, travaillait comme barman et rêvait d’une carrière d’acteur. Malheureusement, en octobre 2011, un certain Mitchell Dean, voyou notoire de 25 ans, on ne peut plus homophobe, rentre dans l’établissement « gay-friendly » où Russel travaille, lui balance de l’essence avant d’allumer son briquet.
« J’en avais jusque dans la gorge… »
Brûlé à plus de 30% sur toute la partie supérieure de son corps, Russel est maintenu dans un coma, au « Queen’s Medical Centre » de Nottingham, avec très peu de chance de survie. Pourtant, contre toute attente, après plusieurs opérations et série de greffes de peau, le jeune homme va se battre et s’en sortir. Mais lorsqu’il peut enfin se regarder dans un miroir, Russel n’est plus le même.
« Je ne voulais plus vivre. Cette agression avait fait disparaître tout aspect de mon identité. »
Il replonge dans le gouffre, envisage le suicide malgré toute l’attention et l’affection de ses proches. Et puis un soir, une pensée lui sourit. Puisque Russel ne ressemble plus à ce qu’il était, pourquoi ne pas complétement tout changer, se réinventer et devenir quelqu’un d’autre, peut-être meilleur… explique Tori au Daily Mirror.
« J’ai réalisé que mon « ardoise » s’était effacé, et que c’était sans doute l’opportunité de devenir cette autre que je voulais être. Je me suis rappelé quand j’étais plus jeune mes préférences pour les vêtements, les jouets qu’on attribuait seulement aux filles. Je me suis souvenu de la première fois que j’ai flashé sur des garçons et qu’on m’a expliqué que j’étais « gay ». J’étais né dans le mauvais corps. Je ne voulais plus de tout ça. Subir la haine et l’homophobie. Je ne ressemblais plus à Russel, et je n’avais plus son ressenti. Il était mort dans les flammes, mais moi je suis en vie. Alors en avant pour Tori.»
Après 18 mois d’initiation à la « vie de femme« , Tori va enfin pouvoir achever « sa création ». Elle va entamer un traitement hormonale et ensuite une chirurgie complète de changement de sexe, avec ses indemnisations en tant que victime d’actes criminels pour compléter sa transformation.
Son agresseur Dean – qui avait également incendié deux autres hommes – a été condamné et restera en suivi pour une durée illimitée dans un centre spécialisé pour « personne à faible santé mentale ».
Tori gardera des cicatrices, notamment sur ses bras et ses mains, qui ne manqueront pas de lui rappeler la terrible tragédie, mais elle veut vivre comme toutes les femmes, et rencontrer l’homme de sa vie.
« Aujourd’hui, j’arpente les chemins la tête haute, je suis tout ce que je voulais être. Jugez-moi, détestez-moi, vous pouvez même essayer de me rabaisser, mais ce sera en vain. Les flammes n’ont pas eu gain de cause sur Russell, elles ont rendu Tori beaucoup plus forte. »
Terry G. pour sopeople.fr
@stop_homophobie
>> Tori Banks was known as Russell and working as a barman when a thug set him alight but surviving the attack gave her the courage to take the biggest step.
She looks every inch a woman who has everything – a beautiful face, perfect curves and tumbling blonde locks.
But the radiant beauty that is Tori Banks today was forged from another, altogether different life that went up in flames in an horrific attack two years ago.
Then, Tori was a gay man called Russell. A 23-year-old male model and part-time barman in his prime – popular, happy and looking forward to a career in theatre.
But one dark day a random evil thug called Mitchell Dean destroyed his world.
Dean ran into the pub where Russell worked, threw lighter fuel in his face and set him ablaze.
Russell was left with 30 per cent burns to his upper body and kept in a coma with little chance of survival. When he did fight back from the brink of death and saw himself in the mirror, he contemplated suicide.
Then, from somewhere stretching back into his childhood, a ray of hope emerged.
Tori explains: “I didn’t want to go on living because the attack had taken every last ounce of my identity away from me.
“I didn’t look or feel like Russell any more. Then something life-changing happened. One night I was at home when I thought that to carry on I had to be someone else. Someone better.
“I realised it was a clean slate and a chance to be anything I wanted. That thing wasn’t a gay man any more – it was a woman.
“Everything in me told me that. I looked back at the way I was as a child – always opting for girly clothes and toys. I remembered realising I fancied boys for the first time and being told by people I was gay, so that was what I accepted.
“But deep down it wasn’t that. I was born in the wrong body, but I’d suppressed it.”
Russell realised there was no going back. So Tori must go forward.
“I found something inside myself that night stronger than I ever imagined,” she says. “Russell died in those flames but I hadn’t. I was still alive and I had a chance to start again.
“Everything I used to be had been stripped away and I was left with one thing – a woman. Tori was the phoenix rising from the ashes.”
Now Tori is preparing to start her clinical sex-change next week after 18 months proving she can live as a woman.
It will begin with hormone treatment and end in full gender reassignment surgery.
She intends to use criminal injuries compensation from the attack to pay for private surgery which will complete her transformation.
But the scars on her arms and hands will always be a constant reminder of what 25-year-old Dean did to her in October 2011. And who she was before the monster ran towards Russell in the Rainbow and Dove gay pub in Leicester.
“I just remember the intense heat and orange flames,” says Tori.
“I tasted what seemed like petrol in my mouth and felt the flames go down my throat as I screamed. I felt the skin peel off my forehead and drop down to cover one of my eyes. It was like a horror movie.”
Russell was in an induced coma in the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham for almost a month, going through a series of operations to cover his face with skin grafts from his thighs while prosthetic skin was used on his chest and arms.
Twice his parents were told to say their goodbyes to their son. A month later, when he came round, his family and the media rejoiced he was still alive – yet Russell was quietly planning his own death.
…
Her attacker Dean – who had also torched two other men – admitted GBH and arson and was given an indefinite custodial sentence in a mental health unit by Basildon Crown Court, Essex, last April.
Sentencing him, Judge David Owen-Jones said: “The physical and psychological effects on these young men are agonising. They’re three young lads who had so much to look forward to in life.”
Now Russell is gone – and Tori could tell the judge a different story. She has an exciting new life to look forward to – and dreams of someone to share it with.
“Like every girl, I want to meet the right man,” she says. “But I want to be loved by someone who sees me as a normal girl.”
“Now I walk down the street and hold my head high, knowing I am everything I was supposed to be.
“Judge me, hate me, try to bring me down – you won’t. The flames didn’t kill Russell – they made Tori stronger.”
Extrait du DailyMirror
