100 Trans People's Lives

This collection of 100 personal profiles was produced almost three years ago when Rosie Winterton (the Minister then responsible for trans affairs) was about to launch the Government’s Policy, leading to the Gender Recognition Act. She thought it would help to have a few pen pictures of the kind of people the legislation would benefit — so I asked our members online to supply just that. It was one of those phenomenal moments when people just rose to the event .. and delivered more than a hundred immensely personal self-portraits in the space of just five days. It was, in its time, the most phenomenal response we had ever got from people.
Our web site statistics also indicate that it is an immensely popular page still .. I think it catches the imagination and it is fascinating to read about all those very diverse lives. For campaigners like myself, these pictures of real people trying to live fairly ordinary lives are a constant reminder of what we are there to do. (from www.pfc.org.uk: Press For Change)
1.
I am 38 and have worked in the adult and community learning sector as an admin manager for a college for the past 3 years, as well as running my own IT consultancy business. I have also recently trained as a counsellor. When I was 18 I tried seeing my GP but he knew nothing about the condition and was less than sympathetic. This knocked me back, so I hid my feelings and denied myself the right to be happy. After university I joined the RAF as a Provost Officer and spent another 12 years struggling with my inner feelings. It wasn’t until my mid 30s that I once again found the courage to face my transexuality, and this time I resolved to see it through despite the hardships. I lost a few friends along the way, but my long standing friends and family have been very supportive. Now I have a partner and am very happy.
2.
I am 23 years old and a medical student at a UK university. Despite being a pre-transition female to male transsexual I function very well in daily life and am doing well at medical school. I don’t look like a freak, I look like a perfectly normal man, albeit a few years younger than my actual age! If you didn’t “know” I was female, you wouldn’t guess. But it isn’t easy. I get constant reminders of my gender problems, with patients addressing me as “Sir” and then being confused when the doctors refer to me as “she”. I get abuse from consultants about the way I dress and evil looks in the female changing rooms as though I am some sort of pervert. I have battled on despite all these problems for years, and they will all come to an end when I transition in about eight months time. And yet I will still have a gender conflict because my legal gender will not change with me. One government department is encouraging me in my transition and yet that same government refuses to recognise my new gender. I can’t praise the NHS highly enough for the help they have given me so far. Lets just hope the rest of the government can also see sense.
3.
I was born in Belfast on the twelfth of August 1949 with gender dysphoria and throughout my life I have known that I was a woman. Even at the young age of four years old, I knew this to be true, although I did not know why I felt this way. In every stage of my growing into adulthood I fought against these inner feelings as I was fearful of what parents, teachers, friends and employers would do to me if I made my feelings common knowledge. Eventually I gathered enough courage to face the hostility of my peers and underwent gender reassignment surgery. However I find it hard to understand why I should face opposition and discrimination from the elected government of my own country. All I ask is to be treated the same as any other woman. Some women are born without a womb yet they are not barred from marrying the man they love. People of both sexes are born with deformities and abnormalities daily all over the United Kingdom, yet they are not treated as second class citizens. In 1998 I was forced to leave my job as a lighting electrician in a well know broadcaster due to discrimination. The parent company helped me train to work as an administration assistant, unfortunately they made me redundant in December 2001. I am now studying for a degree in Geography at Queen Mary, London University and I am finally enjoying my life as the woman I am.
4.
SW, age 47, is a senior university lecturer, teaching law at on the UK’s largest universities, and a successful writer. He started living as a man when 19, in the mid 1970s when things were not easy for transsexual people.
Initially he had a chequered work history, but in the mid 1980s took a law degree, followed by a masters and a PhD. He has lived with his female partner for nearly 25 years and they now have 4 children by donor insemination. Their family is an extremely happy one, but SW and his partner worry a lot about what would happen if one of them died and the consequences that would have. SW’s partner would not qualify for a dependant’s pension from his workplace as they cannot get married, and if his partner died then SW could not guarantee the children that they would be allowed to live with their dad, as he is a stranger in law to them.
SW was a group scout leader for 10 years until the children were born, and has been an active volunteer in several charitable organisations for many years.
5.
I am 42 years old living in central Bristol and work for a workers-co-operative as a Health & Safety advisor, company secretary and manufacturing team leader. I am secretary of my local housing association and of a national historical society. After 39 years of living hell, severe lack of confidence, deep depression and anxiety I transitioned in 1999. I have been very lucky in that recieved full acceptance & support from my extended family, and most of my friends, work colleagues and neighbours. Everyone who meets me naturally treats me as the woman I am, however recently I have yet again had to give my birth certificate details as proof of id. I am constantly reminded that I am a fourth class citizen. I am currently single but do hope one day to marry oneday.
6.
I am a 46-year-old transsexual woman living with my partner and two beloved dogs near Manchester. I have had feelings of something “not being quite right” with me for as long as I can remember. As a result of these feelings, I have tended to lead something of an isolated life and have not felt able to relate to either of the stereotypical gender groups. I have never felt masculine and have been “trained” to distance myself from the weakness of feminine feelings.
It is only over the last few years that I have truly understood what my “illness” is. The psychiatric diagnosis of gender identity dysphoria only confirmed what I already knew — I am trapped in the wrong body. Psychiatric treatment, electrolysis and gender re-assignment surgery have allowed me to correct as much of this birth defect as I possibly can. I have sacrificed my marriage, my meagre savings, my employment and many friends to achieve at my current position.
So that you think, that is that. The transformation is complete. I can get on with leading my life in the most constructive way I can. But no, this does not appear to be the case. I seem now to be treated as someone outside mainstream society. I constantly have to disclose the most intimate details of my personal life. I have to tell insurance companies, government bodies, pension funds and all and sundry why I require a new name and title on my documents. Surely, this can’t be fair? All I ask is to be treated like a normal human being. Is this too much to ask?
7.
I am a 49 year transsexual woman living and working in Scotland. My birth was registered in England but despite 2 requests to the General Register Office, I have been denied the opportunity to have my Birth Certificate amended. This has prevented me from marrying and has required that I have to advise insurance companies and my employer (for employer insurance and my own National Insurance purposes) of my status. I am a full-time Co-ordinator with Victim Support Scotland’s Witness Service, with responsibility for staff and volunteers at 4 Sheriff Courts and 3 High Courts; I have been a member of Aberdeenshire Children’s Panel for 9 years. I also run my own accounting and payroll service for many local businesses. 2 years ago I withdrew my application with Angus District Council to offer emergency and respite foster-care when I was advised that any future partner that I may have would have to be a woman. I have always had only support from employers, local and national (Scottish) government. I am accepted for all purposes, and by all people, to be the woman that I am. The one exception is the United Kingdom Parliament.
8.
I am a 33 year old post-operative male to female trans person and have lived in the female role for 3 years. I am married to a female and we wish to stay married. We do not see why we should give up this right when we love each other. I underwent gender reassignment through the private sector, sending us into debt. This was not through choice, but because my health authority put me on to a personally unachievable 20 year waiting list in 1999. I work as a specialist nurse at a general hospital, and transitioned whilst in this post. The equality laws meant that I had to be treated fairly. There was discrimination, but I was expected to put up with that because they had put up with me changing gender!! I pass well as female and so have no problems with new colleagues and patients. I like to keep my past in the past. I am happier than I have ever been, and am now trying to gain promotion and move to another hospital where I can start afresh. On several interviews I have been asked for my birth certificate to prove British Citizenship. One place would accept a passport, but £30 for a passport that I will not otherwise use??? I need a birth certificate change because my interviewers are finding out about my past before they have to make a decision on who gets the post!!! I still have no promotion!!
9.
I am 22 and a postgraduate student studying for an MA. My ambition is to become a university lecturer. I experienced years of trying to live as a female since I left school, and irregularly so going back to my early teens, but these ultimately wore me down in the face of the biological and social obstacles I was contending with. I was bullied to near suicide by the boys at my school for being different. Only gradually though did I learn about the nature of my medical condition and that it was actually possible to change my sex. Eighteen months ago I began the recognised medical route of transition while studying for my undergraduate degree. Now I am comfortably settled in my new role and have found a normal happy social life for the first time ever. I am a normal female to everyone around be, and I am totally private about my past with all but a handful of friends. It saddens me though that while I have been doing everything I can to get on with my life, the law still wishes to thwart me. I can be perfectly legally barred from using the women’s toilets, as happened to me recently in somewhere which knew my past, and all because the law does not grant me recognition as a female. If I can be tripped up on such a minor thing, I have no idea how I am supposed to live a normal life. One day though I would like to get married and have a family.
10.
I am 51 and am a police sergeant in a north of England force. My employers and work colleagues were very supportive when I told them that I was going to be a policewoman instead of policeman. I was so pleased that I could continue to do the job which I enjoy and which I had been doing for 26 years. My former spouse had known for a long time that I felt like a woman trapped in a man’s body and of the mental anguish I suffered, but when I finally took the plunge and started living in the gender which feels right for me, it ended my marriage. My daughter now lives with her mum. She is at Cambridge university and I am very proud of her. We have remained friends and we enjoy going shopping and eating out together. I have a new social life and go out regularly with work colleagues and other friends. My gender doesn’t matter to them. It is nice that I now have some new friends who never knew me as a man and only think of me as a woman. I am much happier being a woman but it upsets me that I am not legally recognised as being of the gender in which I permanently live. It is painful to have to declare my past to strangers, for example when seeking financial services. I hope that one day I will find someone who will want to marry me.
11.
I am employed as Development Officer for the Sussex hub of learndirect. My responsibilities include developing new and existing learndirect centres, to maximise the take up of learning opportunities by disadvantaged adults and small businesses. I am also an accredited Assessor and Adviser for the Investors in People National Standard, a role which my employer allows me to continue, part-time, on a consultancy basis. I struggled to cope with gender dysphoria for many years but the drive to “transition” and live as a woman eventually became impossible to resist. Despite my worst fears, most of my family and friends did not reject me when I explained what I had to do. I was also very fortunate in having work and business colleagues who were supportive. I am fairly open about my past and sometimes give talks to employers and other organisations about transsexuality. People are usually stunned to learn that I may legally marry another woman but not a man and express dismay that I still have to live with a birth certificate that states I am male. Despite this widespread sympathy and acceptance, I still have the sense of vulnerability that every gender dysphoric person grows up with. For me, the prime cause of that continuing vulnerability is the State’s refusal to grant legal recognition of my being female.
12.
I am 50-ish years old and am self employed, due to the inability to find employment. I attribute the difficulty in finding work to my being gender dysphoric. I feel that, even I was considered suitable for employment, other complications arise such as employer’s liability insurance etc. However, I was picked on at school for ‘being different’ despite trying to fit in. I left school and joined the army as an apprentice aged 15 and stayed with the Royal Engineers for 15 years to serve my country & ‘to prove myself a man’! I left the army in 1983 and worked in the UK and overseas within Inventory Management and Stock Control, including both private companies and the NHS, until 1992 when I felt I could not run away from myself / condition any further. I currently find everyday life has many difficulties which are not presented to non GD persons and this affects everything from pension planning to health insurance. The present social and legal status of GD persons means ‘I don’t belong’ anywhere within the society of this country – I’m now wondering why I devoted the best years of my life to the country that now refuses to acknowledge/recognise my status.
13.
I am 40 years old. I work as a Business Technology Analyst for Hertfordshire County Council. Basically that means I look after computers for the elected County Councillors. I am a parent to Rachel who is a Downes Syndrome child. I’ve have a wonderfull life since I came to terms with myself as a Transexual Woman several years ago. I transitioned 3 years ago and stayed in the job which I have held now for 16 years. Everyone I work with has been fantastically supportive. I had my sex reassignment surgery 2 months ago after 2 years of counselling and I have never been happier.I’ve lost touched with my only two remaining relatives, My sisters, one of whom is my twin, as they had problems accepting me as a Sister. Thats very hard sometimes, but a price Transexual people often pay. I enjoy reading, mostly biographies as truth is often stranger then fiction! I often go to the cinema and restaurants with freinds. I am a parent governor of my Daughters special needs school. This is a role I love as it really makes me feel like I’m making a difference. The truth is, Transitioning from Male to Female is the easiest thing I’ve ever done. Living the lie as it was before was infinitely harder.
14.
I am 29, and work in a large insurance company. I have recently transitioned at work, and am fully accepted career and society wise as who I am, a successful woman. I really do worry about the future however. Fairly soon I wish to change jobs, and may have to produce my birth certificate to my new employer. The way things are now, I would have to tell somebody something that doesn’t matter, and is my private information, and leaves myself open to all types of prejudice. I have to be so guarded, and my life is affected by this. I cannot look to the future with a complete positive attitude as I do not have the same human rights being a TS woman. I cannot get married, I don’t think I can adopt children, I cannot have recognition upon my birth certificate, and my personal and private life cannot be personal or private. I try my best though!
15.
My name is Daphne, I am a 40 year old trans woman. Currently I work as a senior staff nurse in a small hospital in Nottinghamshire. I have been in nursing for about 9 years. Prior to this I worked in the field of engineering including several years working for the Ministry of Defence.
In September 2000 I reached the point where I could no longer carry on living the lie of pretending to be someone I was not. Having seriously considered suicide I decided to transition. I think one of the hardest things to come to terms with was the sudden loss of social and legal status, I was suddenly a none person. This became very apparent at work when I was discriminated against by the management. I was effectively stopped from practising fully as a nurse and treated like I belonged to neither sex. Now my patients needed protecting from me, and the legislation in place to protect me, was woefully inadequate because of all the grey areas. It cost me all my savings to get the matter resolved; only now the discrimination is subtler, but on the whole I can get on with the job I love.
I look forward to the day when I can once again feel like a valued member of society, and have the same rights of every other woman. Fortunately my patients have been super and their respect and gratitude have kept me going through these difficult times.
16.
I am now 53 years old, having made my transition 11 years ago. Before that time, I was living in a world that I didn’t understand, constantly finding myself out of work, and struggling to maintain relationships. Coming out as transsexual cost me my home, my friends and all my family including my parents. It was a brutal, and unnecessarily cruel process.
I now live in a world that makes sense, where I can communicate freely, and where I am a valued member of society, even if that society still does not recognise me as any sort of legal entity. I have been in a stable and permanent relationship for over 7 years, have found training in accountancy, and am working towards a degree with the Open Uni. Working as an Accounts and Personnel manager, over the past few years I have turned my employer’s business from a disaster into a highly profitable company, thereby securing many jobs in an economically deprived area. I could not have done any of this as the person that I used to be.
Despite having to carry this insufferable burden alone, I am still left in a situation where I have far less rights than my neighbour. I also live in constant fear of bigotry; a despicable, unfair bigotry which finds it’s justification in my negative legal recognition. This in spite of the ability of the rest of civilised Europe to understand me as a person without needing the spur of the European Court of Human Rights.
17.
For many years I worked for the international division of a major telecommunications company. I ‘transitioned’ many years ago with the support of my employer, and my family, which enabled me to continue my work. For several years, my work took me to a very remote area of the UK, where I was also involved in a local theatre group and kept my own sheep. As well as my communications work, I have always had a passion for mountains. In 1989 I left main-stream employment to work as a trek-leader, taking groups of people on adventure walking holidays to far-off regions of the world. I have also travelled extensively in my own right with my partner. (We have just celebrated 12 years of ‘being together’). More recently, I qualified as a TEFL teacher (Teacher of English as a Foreign Language), and have also worked as a training manager for a large communications company. To pass my spare moments I enjoy making travel videos (with my digital video camera), and work as a Parish Councillor for the village in which I live. I am not ‘out’ as a transsexual person and find having to give details of my ‘former life’ for car insurance, pension schemes and the like, very distressing, and often embarassing for both parties.
18.
I’m a 30 year old full time student and part time youth worker. I am also a Trans-Man. The journey in becoming the proper me has been difficult and fraught with other people’s rejection, hostility, and ignorance. But, on the other hand, it has been well worth it. Being Trans has made me question things other folks take for granted. It has given me a different perspective on life. It has given me the opportunity of a life, doing what I want to do in a way I want to do it, in addition to many more positive things. However, the only things that really annoys me about being Trans is the mess the law is in, and the fact that I am FORCED to ‘out’ myself to various people and institutions. University demanded to see my birth certificate. Disclosure Scotland forced me to show my birth certificate to my employer. The DSS is the same. It seems I have no ‘right to privacy’, no right to form a family; no right to get married, and no right to be treated the same as everyone else. I can only ask: Why is this county, its lawmakers, its politicians so bloody backward in their thinking and so stubborn in their (non) action compared to other countries in the world, countries where Transpeople are treated respectfully as human beings. Come on Britain your not that Great, at least not for us anyway.
19.
I’m 47 years old and had lived in the wrong gender for 40 of them, by which time I was an alcoholic, broke, unhappy loser. It was then I faced up to my problems and with love care and medical help overcame them. I admitted I was a transsexual and two years later underwent Gender Reassignment Surgery. Life now is GOOD. I now run my own successful property maintenance company, have no debts, don’t drink, I slimmed down, and am now happy with life. None of this would have been achieved without caring people, understanding the trauma I ( and others like me) went through on a daily basis. Nowadays people I work for have no idea about my past life and I can go for weeks not giving it a thought, but occasionally it comes back to haunt me due to the red tape and outdated laws that exist. Then I’m reminded how much hurt can be caused by the inconsiderate dinosaural ignorant bureaucrats and laws. I really hope and pray that the government announcement finally addresses our needs and gives us the legal status we are due and have been hard fought for.
20.
I am 36 years old and work as an embedded software engineer in the consumer electronics industry. I live with my partner in Leeds. I was troubled all through my childhood. After graduating from university with an honours degree in physics I tried to make it as a male and as an accountant working for one of the big six accountancy firms. It all became too much and I left the industry aged 28 to return to university for postgraduate studies. At the same time I began my transition and came ‘out’ to my parents. Relations were difficult at first but over time they came to understand and now the entire family are behind me. I had surgery a little over four years ago and returned to industry two years ago. Although my transition has been fairly easy as they go I still feel awkward when I have declare my past to government bodies and or companies and feel that my change is unfinished. I believe that being able to change my birth certificate would make my transition complete.
21.
At 32 years of age I enjoyed my job working with teenagers as a deputy head teacher. Twelve years later and after actively being considered for about five head teacher posts I commenced gender reassignment, which forced me to leave teaching. I tried to renter paid employment and fought four tribunal cases, where I had been discriminated against. I won two, then lost two and so gave up trying to get paid work, despite having four university degrees. I am now the vice chair of governors in an inner city school, the chair of two local community groups in the Asian part of the city where I live, and I work nationally on equal opportunities for an Association of Advice Bureau and a National Teachers Union. I am a committed Christian and am active both ecumenically and interfaith, I organised a very well attended Moslem Christian gathering for peace in response to September 11th. 2001 and this year was asked to help with an interfaith gathering which filled the city cathedral. I am married but separated and am the biological parent of four children who I have not seen for 3½ years, I miss my family terribly. This year I first travelled abroad, I flew out to Sri Lanka on my own for a month and I lived, totally accepted with the local people. I now at last love life because I feel my body, mind and spirit are in harmony.
22.
CB is 49 years old, lives in Manchester, and is a manager for a company which looks after people with learning disabilities, employing around 90 people. With a First class degree she has worked as an IT and business consultant for most of her life – a career which she was fortunate in being able to continue with the support of her business clients when it became impossible to carry on denying her transsexuality in her early thirties. The transition cost her home, most of what she had saved and built, several friends and part of her family – an experience she describes as a form of living death. With the strength which came from being able to express herself at last, she quickly rebuilt her life though. She became the secretary, treasurer, and vice chair of her local Conservative party, was invited to chair a local women’s social group, trained as volunteer telephone counsellor for a well-known national charity, developed a new social life and friends, bought her own house and developed new interests in writing and poetry. In spite of all her efforts she still feels vulnerable when applying for everyday things like a motor insurance or mortgage because she either has to declare her legal status as male or say nothing and risk untold problems later. Every occasion is an unpleasant reminder of the painful life she put behind her.
23.
I left school in 1958 unable to read or write. I went from job to job both on the land and in factorys until I joined The Parachute Regiment in 1961. The Army diagnosed me as a dyslexic with a high IQ and helped me to learn to read and write. I left the Army as a NCO in 1970. I was a Civil Servant for the next 3 years until I joined North Thames Gas as a Meter Reader / Collector. I did this job until I had a heart-attact in 1979. After this I went into the office. In 1981 I told North Thames that I was under going treatment as a Transsexual and that I intending to start living as a woman for the rest of my life. I was promoted after the change and stayed with them until 1989 when I became the Landlady & Licensee of Cockneys Public House in the Old Kent Road. In 1993 I had 3 heart-attacts and left the pub with my partner the following year. Since then I have been on Income Support as I have been unfit for work. My partner left me after 14 years in 1998. I am now 59 and living with my 2 Kerry Blue Terriers and I am very happy.
24.
I was 23 when I transitioned in 1998. I was a professional musician playing in an orchestra in Spain at the time. I was sacked as a result of my trans status. I returned to England where I hoped finding employment would be easier. I was wrong. Another three jobs came and went. Each time I was sacked for my trans status. Three years of unemployment, much isolation and homelessness followed.
Now, I teach music three days a week. When I’m not teaching, I spend much of my time with refugees in North London, playing in their folk bands and listening to stories, most of which often involve hideous torture and rape. When human rights issues are raised, I write letters to the Home Office or Amnesty for them, as they are not always confident in their English ability. Other than that, I’m a Samaritan volunteer and am an active member of a Quaker Meeting. I am an FTM Network helpline volunteer and do what I can to support PFC in the campaign for basic human rights for the transgendered community here so that we too have full legal recognition and can live our lives without prejudice and discrimination.
25.
I am a modern woman, early forties, confident and living my life to the full. I have an understanding of myself that perhaps many people will never achieve. I have experienced so much in my lifetime; rejection, suicidal depression and ultimately happiness. From my earliest memories I did not see myself as others around me had established me to be. I did not conform to normal theories regarding self-image and especially that of gender definition. At school I was bullied by both sexes. I am now a full time career woman and part time housewife. I work for a National Charity and am studying for a degree in order that I can better help the disadvantaged and people that society is prejudiced towards through ignorance. I am still stigmatised by society. I am classified & labelled a “Transsexual”. I consider that I have suffered from an intersexed condition but that doesn’t mean I have to behave like a victim. My partner and I want to marry and feel it is absurd that any man and woman should have to fight for this basic right.
26.
I am a 46 year old community nurse working for the NHS in London. My life changed 10 years ago when I realized that that I wasn’t the person I needed to be. On reflection, my life has become harder, but better after taking the decision to change.
Though I have lost friends and family through my decision, I have rebuilt my life. I feel that I’m a valued member of society. The only shadow now hanging over me is the fact that I live in the world as a woman, but with a man’s birth certificate.
The fear around this uncertainty haunts me. To quote an old saying “a life lived in fear is a life half lived”. I no longer want to live life in fear.
27.
I’m 48 years old, a research historian and author of historical articles. I was a teacher of that precious shortage subject, special educational needs before I was forced into retirement in my early thirties by attitudes as they then existed. I’ve worked since in adult special needs education and mental health care education as well as with young unemployed people in the years since my gender confirmation surgery, finally deciding to become self employed some five years ago.
I’m a Master’s graduate and hold three further postgraduate qualifications as well as a teaching certificate and postgraduate qualifications in special educational needs. I live in a long term heterosexual relationship with my partner of ten years- we have not been able to marry owing to the law as it at present stands, and are presently denied the basic human rights of privacy, dignity and the right to marry and found a family.
I would just like people to understand that I am a human being though, with friends, relatives and a lover, dreams, ambitions needs and rights. I look forward to the day the Government brings forward the legislation to right thirty years of crying wrong sooner rather than later. After the next general election is unacceptable- I am also a Labour party member!
28.
Ever since I can remember, I have felt like a boy although I am a girl. When I was at school, I got into many fights and was called a “tomboy”. I was forbidden to wear trousers, as I was a lady. (I am 57 now). One day my godmother bought me a pair of dungarees and I wore them until they were rags, much to my Mother’s indignancy. I can remember tying my tie on the school blouse,(which incidentally was a boy’s shirt as I refused to wear girl’s blouses) which I used to tie in a windsor knot. I had my hair cut very short and would cut it myself if mum would’nt let me go to the hairdresser.
I was very envious when the boys could shave as I felt I should do so. I hated being a woman and puberty was a nightmare. I hated my boobs and was extremely embarrassed by the whole grisly business of periods and becoming a woman. During teenage years I was in a state of trauma not knowing who I was and that I was a boy in a girls awful body. I hate my womanly shape and have dieted and exercised all my life to diminish it to an acceptable ‘male’ shape that I could deal with. It wasn’t a desire to be slim but to have a more manly appearance. In therapy, was told that I was in denial of my femininity!
I have lived in misery partly because of the trauma of adoption and also of wanting to reveal my deep feelings of wanting to be a man. I am always too embarrassed to talk about it, even in therapy for fear I might be an outcast and considered a lesbian, which I am not. I would not wish these awful feelings on my worst enemy, now I feel as though I have had a wasted life, at 57, still a woman, I feel I have no future as I am now too old to fulfil my life in the way it should really have been. As a man.
Rather than expose my awful secret to the world I joined a reenactment society and dress up as a man and act as a man. These are the times in my life when I have most been at ease and have felt real. The sooner that these issues are accepted as the norm can’t come quickly enough to save future transexuals needless anxiety and horrendous suffering and the hands of their ‘so called’ fellow man.
29.
I was born in 1934 and joined the RAF as a “Boy Entrant”. I then served King, Queen and Country for 40 years until my contract ended 13 years ago. I then had my own business making Silver model aircraft and my hallmark is registered at Sheffield assay Office.
I was diagnosed as “Gender Dysphoric” a few months before my sixtieth birthday and was horrified to find that I had suddenly become a “Non-Person” in the country I had served all my working life and unfortunately also lost my business during Mrs Thatcher’s recession.
On completion of my transformation I have worked at my local hospital’s new out patients department as a volunteer hostess for eight months, escorting patients to the correct areas. Once the system was fully working then my services were no longer required. I am also a “Lay Advisor” on “Transgender Issues” to my local Constabulary and was involved with the re-write of their Homophobic Policy Document. I also participate with the local area LGBT committee.
The main thrust of my voluntary work these days is as an educator. To this end I give talks to many professional groups .. for instance, the “Corporate Management Group” of my local Magistrates court. Some of my other voluntary work includes : the Royal College of Nurses, H M Prison Management Staff, Serving Police Officers, Magistrates Court Staff and Mature students at my local College studying “A” & “O” level Criminology and Sociology.
Generally speaking I had a trouble free transition apart from some odd people in the medical profession! However I was lucky that I had been in the military and knew how to fight my corner. I also had my military pension so was not beholden to anyone to give me a job!
Am I happy with my new life? You bet I am! Even my mother said that I was a far nicer person as Lynne than I was as Lawrence. She should know!
30.
At present I am sponsored for an MRes course in Bioinformatics at the University of York. I graduated last summer, age 26, with a Doctorate in Molecular Genetics from the University of Oxford. At age 21, during an MSc in Medical Genetics and Immunology at Brunel University in London, I lost my Father and at age 23, during my DPhil, I lost my Mother. At age 24 I moved with my supervisor to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota (U.S.A) for the last 2 years of my DPhil, during which time I started transition. I returned to Britain earlier this year to graduate and finally begin living my life, as a man.
I am an only child and the past six years of my life have not been easy but I have succeeded despite all of my loses, and against great prejudice including from my remaining family. I am extremely happy, emotionally and psychologically, with the decisions I have made and I have some amazingly supportive friends. However, I do now look to the future and worry about the legalities of my transsexual status in terms of my position as an international academic researcher. I also have a great desire to be part of a family again, to have my own family and to be fully recognised as a husband and father.
31.
I’m Vicky, 19 years old and an everyday student living in South East England, where no-one knows my past identity. I am now living in a much happier life after many years of self torment. I knew I was a girl from the age of four, suffered tireless verbal and physical abuse at school and church
This is something I wrote aged seven, around 1990 in my diary—
“Today im going to tell my mummy and daddy a secret. i am a girl i have know for long time that. i hope my two little brothers like me as a sister. i do not wat to be a boy it is not nice and boys are not nice to me but the girls are. i hope god tells my mummy and daddy that its ok me being a girl. maybe i will get my little pony for birthday like my bestest frend has she is so nice i want to be like her. she has boyfrend now i will have one soon when mummy and daddy help me dress like other girls”
I didn’t manage to come out until this year after almost killing myself, and now I have friends, I enjoy life, and have happiness at last. My parents accept me now as their daughter, my brothers accept me as their sister, but I feel that the Government still bullies me. My family and I have only one anguish, being denied marriage I have always dreamt of my wedding day with my man, but I can’t, at the moment. I hope one day once married to be able to have a family and adopt children, please don’t destroy my childhood dreams, and help the future generations.
32.
I’m 33 and work as a Senior Software Engineer in the digital TV broadcasting industry. From an early age I knew I was a boy, but my body disagreed. For a long time no-one could understand what was wrong with me, my parents least of all, and I was labelled a difficult child. As I grew up, my problems became worse. I tried to pull myself back together and put all my effort into my studies, gaining a First Class Honours degree. On the surface I seemed to have everything going for me, but despite all the hard work I’d put into my studies, I was struggling to find a reason to get from one day to the next.
Those days are now behind me. I’m fortunate to have been in a supportive work environment when I ‘came out’, but it hasn’t been easy. I’ve lost my family, and all hope I had of being in touch with my father again disappeared when I learnt of his death. I’m now in a long term stable relationship with my partner, whom I met several years ago at the start of my changes. Everyday life is good, but the legal situation in this country leaves me in limbo, unable to marry and denied my basic human right to privacy. A colleague at work asked me if I was married the other day; a normal part of the conversation we were having. He’d be shocked to learn that I can’t get married.
33.
I knew I was different at 3 years old. I was a boy in a girl’s body. At 13 I braved telling my parents. Then followed the weary round of jumping through hoops for psychiatrists and psychologists, ending up with the late head of the Gender Identity Clinic at Charing Cross who informed my parents that I was just going through a phase.
Well, that was 35 years ago – a very long phase! At the age of 18, I started the long haul of becoming me and am now well esteemed in my work in a caring profession, a leading tenor in Operatic Societies, very happily married (although not legally – yet!) and hoping to become a father: maybe by the time that happens I will be able to legally accept the responsibilities of parenthood.
The costs of transitioning are beyond belief. Not just the £40,000 spent on surgery, but also the cost in wasted years when I could have been concentrating on my education or contributing to society instead of having to direct my energy into persuading “specialists” that I was genuine.
The bigger cost was losing my family and friends, and having to lose so much of my history. But, even had I known what it was going to cost me in terms of money and health I would still have taken that step. People say I was brave to transition. This is not true. The choice was to find my real self or die. There was no other choice.
34.
I am 42 and work as a physicist and manager in the nuclear industry. I particularly enjoy the mix of technical challenge and being able to work with people to achieve our objectives safely. Throughout my early life I knew that I could never live as a man and took the first chance at university to approach my GP but the unhelpful and aggressive response put off any chance of transition for many years. My family were all told in my early twenties and by the age of 28 I was living almost exclusively as a woman but dressing androgynously in places where I still had to be male, such as at work. It was only when I finally got onto the internet in the late 90’s that I was able to meet others like myself and gradually gathered the courage to approach the doctors again, this time finding great sympathy, if little knowledge of what my transsexualism meant. For the first time in my life I have a fairly stable life without the constant fear of discovery and have started a relationship with a man. I just want to move on with my life and try to forget the distress of my former life. The potential conflict between the reality of my everyday life and my legal status is a painful reminder of that sad past.
35.
CA is 51 years old and owns and drives a black cab for a living in a large market town. Most of her work is based around contracts for wheelchair users and adults with special needs for the local county council. Some years ago she was a police officer but was forced to retire early when her transsexuality became known to senior officers. She was fortunate in that all of her family supported her through those difficult times and she was able to keep her housing. Unwilling to face rejection in the employment market place, the easier option was taken and she became self employed running her taxi.
About two years ago she began cycling, riding with a local touring club and then onto long distance events. A few months ago she began to ride in time trials but ran into difficulties when Cycling Time Trials, the national regulatory body, were told of her past history. They then effectively banned her from entering further women’s events unless she submitted to a humiliating medical examination. She is currently in the early stages of taking legal action to confront the discrimination she has suffered. This, she feels, would not be necessary once legislation is put in place from Parliament.
36.
I am a 49-year-old Manager with a major electricity utility where I have worked for 32 years. I trained and qualified as an electrical engineer. As well as running my own department during the day I still carry out emergency field duties out of hours. I also represent the company in dealings with a number of outside bodies. The company and the union I belong to have been very supportive. My work colleagues are generally supportive though one or two have struggled.
I completed my transition 18 months ago having struggled with my gender identity for 30 years. My Ex wife has been very supportive and my three children have been completely wonderful (Son 27, 2 Daughters 9 & 11). Our relationship has never been better possibly because I am hiding nothing from them any more.
The rest of my family have also been accepting. My 76year old mother in particular takes the view that she was responsible for making me, however I have turned out, so how can she do anything other than support me. Unfortunately my father died this year after a losing his battle with cancer so it hasn’t been a very easy time.
I am shortly to have surgery, which I have to pay for. Apart from the brilliant support from my GP the NHS have done absolutely nothing for me. Its very fortunate I can pay for my treatment, as I don’t know what mental state I might have ended up in. Possibly I wouldn’t have remained a well-balanced individual contributing to society!
37.
I’m a twenty eight year old lecturer and writer, who moved abroad two years ago – with my now husband – in part due to the lack of legal recognition available to me in the UK. Am still an english passport holder and citizen.
I had my operation ten years ago, and can honestly say that apart from the legal impediments, I have never looked back. In the UK I worked first in a housing capacity – I changed over whilst working as an housing officer in three of the roughest housing estates in south london. Everyone: staff, caretakers and residents were just amazing in their support. I moved onto university shortly after, won some writing prizes and gained a degree and MA. I then lectured before moving abroad.
No one has known about my past – apart from my family and husband – since I moved out of the housing field about eight years ago. My husband and I plan to adopt. Were the legal situation in the UK to ever change, then we’d think about returning. But until then, as a couple and – hopefully soon – as a family, my husband and I will keep on living our lives to the fullest of our abilities.
38.
I am a sixty-seven year-old academic librarian, with more than forty years experience in university and large reference libraries, the last sixteen years having been worked in my female persona. My autobiography, Katherine’s Diary, won the Australian Human Rights Award For Non-Fiction in 1992, the year of its publication. I am currently working in two part-time positions (three days a week in each) as Librarian of the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of New South Wales and as the Librarian and Resources Development Officer for the Gender Centre, the only Government-funded centre for people with gender issues in the southern hemisphere.
I am currently writing a report funded by an innovative grant from the Attorney-General of New South Wales on violence against the transgendered community (including self-violence) with recommendations for strategies to minimise that violence.
When I transitioned in 1986 my wife and two of my daughters no longer wanted anything to do with me. The third daughter, my sister and my mother continued to express their love and support for me. Since 1991 I have had three relationships, all with women, but since my first concern is with a person’s mind rather than his or her body I do not pretend that one day I might not find myself in a relationship with a man (but they’d better hurry!).
I do what I can to assist the trans- cause in public, writing papers, taking part in conferences, workshops and seminars and editing a bi-monthly magazine for the Gender Centre. I was a candidate for the Australian Democrats in the 1998 Federal election and doubled the Democrat vote from that of the previous election.
I was born in Aberdeen, Scotland and retain my British citizenship and passport. Clearly if I am ever to have my gender details recorded appropriately on my birth records it will have to be after suitable amendments to the laws of Britain. I therefore urge all Members of Parliament to amend the laws of Great Britain in order to recognise the true gender of those of us who have transitioned in accordance with recent rulings from the European Court of Human Rights.
39.
I am 22 years old going on 17, I’m finally at a stage in my life where I feel like I am actually living, and making a contribution to the world. It has been a hard battle to get where I am today; it has made me much stronger than the average 22 year old. I have been very lucky in some ways, I have the full support of my family who have accepted their Son/Brother, my friends and my new girlfriend, who doesn’t try to understand, she just accepts me as male no question. I appreciate life much more now, and am enjoying every second, thank you very much!
You don’t appreciate how tough life can be in the wrong body until you experience the joy or being in the right body! I work as an IT Helpdesk Analyst, where no body knows of my past, for now I would like to keep it that way. Like other men, I dream of a family and a home, and maybe one day this will be possible
40.
I am 22 years old and have recently finished studying for a degree in psychology, at the moment however I find myself unemployed.
I plucked up the courage to tell my parents I wanted to be a girl at the age of 15 although I was 17 before I began treatment after being diagnosed with gender identity disorder by my local psychiatrist. At the time I began treatment at Charring Cross Hospital I was told I was one of their youngest patients and 5 years later I have been told that I am still one of the youngest. I have been for the most part lucky in that my parents and brother support me, and that I have now had sex reassignment surgery.
Despite this I am constantly plagued with worry as due to my legal status at the moment I keep on having to produce documentation with my old details on and constantly have to explain my situation to strangers at job interviews where first impressions count. There is every suggestion that this has inhibited my ability to gain employment as I am otherwise a highly skilled and articulate individual, and I have in the past seen people treating me differently due to my ‘condition’.
I look forwards to the future with trepidation since at the moment I cannot marry or comfortably raise a family, something, which is a constant cause of distress.
41.
I knew I was a girl aged 4 and told a teacher god made a mistake, he said I would grow out of it. I remained very depressed. Aged 35 I tried to commit suicide. My GP was supportive and I transitioned externally to female. Once I found that I “passed” without comment I moved home to another part of the country to pursue a life.
I completed an access to nursing course, gaining many friends and passed with maximum credits. They went on to pursue nursing degrees, however I couldn’t as I was asked to produce my birth Certificate which invaded my privacy. The university approached me, as I had such high marks, for direct entry to masters in social work, I couldn’t as I was asked to show my Birth Certificate. I started another degree course but could not get the funding I was entitled too, the LEA wanted my birth certificate, so I funded myself. I went to the job centre with other students only to be asked my NI number. I was then told I didn’t exist and would have to see a manager.
Meanwhile my friends were set up interviews for jobs. I was so upset I left and spent my meagre savings on tuition fees. After completing my first year and obtaining a first in my exams I was unable to fund going back to uni. I try to be positive but my whole life depends on implementing the ECHR decision. I am distraught now I hear it might not occur for another 3 years. What am I to do?
42.
I am 50 years old, live in Scotland and I have worked in technical sales for 14 years and have also run my own company. I used to be very active in the Trans Community, being chairperson of a support group and campaigning for PFC. I live an active life where very few people apart from my boyfriend and close friends know of my past.
In spite of fitting in well and not having any major problems, I feel vulnerable when applying for things like, a job, private pension, motor insurance or a mortgage because I feel obliged to declare my legal status as male, either that or say nothing and risk untold problems later. Every occasion is an unpleasant reminder of the painful life I put behind me and whilst it shouldn’t, can jeopardise my employment and quality of life.
I welcome the decision of the European Court of Human Rights in July 2002, as I hope the government will move forward from this and bring in legislation within the next 12 months which will allow changes to my Birth Certificate and Legal Status, therefore allowing me to live as normal a life as any other Woman in the United Kingdom.
43.
I am 24, and work in information technology. It is not a career I particularly want to pursue, but have been held here while I complete my treatment. I happen to be transsexual, and I have been very lucky with the company that I work for. They understand that this is a medical condition and not a ‘lifestyle choice’, and have given me time off work for the surgery. Seems a bit unfair to leave the company as soon as I am able to, particularly as so many employers would not have been so understanding.
Aside from this I lead a normal life. I am single and live alone, and by and large the local thugs leave me alone too: I have had abuse shouted at me in the street on only one occasion, and the boys quickly ran off.
I have a degree in ecology, which I am planning on using for a career now that I have completed the treatment. I find it an endlessly fascinating subject.
Changing jobs, buying insurance – even meeting new people. Eventually I have to reveal my past, breaching my privacy and opening myself to their prejudices. Usually this results in only a few intrusive personal questions, but has resulted in worse in the past. Anonymous letters, abuse and threats in public, job offers withdrawn for odd reasons.
44.
I am a 55 year old woman who is employed in a senior position by a large multinational company where I head up the European engineering services, reporting directly to the Directors of the company. I enjoy the variety of my work and the challenges it produces and in my opinion there is nothing more fulfilling than solving problems, the harder it is the better the sense of achievement.
The company have ensured that very few are aware of my history, and they keep it that way by advising those who are aware that they are not to discuss it, with the threat of severe repercussions if they do disclose.
For relaxation I spend a great deal of my time researching into the history of women’s dress over the last 500 years although I do specialise in the 1850 to 1900 era. I am also involved with organisations that arrange re-enactments of various events where I play a Victorian Duchess, complete with bustle etc. In all I live a full and happy life which contrasts with the miserable existence I had years ago trying to live a life that was full of lies, pretending to be something I wasn’t. The only fly in the ointment is the fact that I have to disclose my history at various times (applying for insurance etc.) and endure the derision and bigotry that results.
45.
C, 49, qualified as a solicitor in 1978 and was quickly made a partner in a central London firm. In early 1997, following professional advice and hormone treatment, she confided in the Senior Partner. Initially he was supportive, but gradually became more unsure. He was unable to maintain confidentiality, and insisted on the rest of the firm being told long well before the planned date. The remaining partners were initially shocked, but agreed to support C through her transition. Someone then “outed” C to “the Sun”, which damaged support from within the firm. One consultant in particular refused to work with C anymore, despite having done so on a daily basis for the previous 19 years.
The following year, C’s profit share was reduced by 25%. As this was a partnership the legislative protection for employees did not apply and she resigned. On the eve of her GRS, the Senior Partner asked her to stay, but as she would be absent for 6 weeks, it was agreed to let matters rest. Four months later, the Senior Partner denied that the meeting had ever taken place or that he had asked her to withdraw her resignation.
C left, and after a period of unemployment and depression, set up in practice on her own, where she is now trying to re-establish her client base. So far she is not making enough money to live on.
C now has a girlfriend, and they have just celebrated their third anniversary.
46.
Although I knew that something was very different about me from the rest of the kids when I was very young, I only plucked up the courage to ask for help after my first marriage broke up in the 1970’s. I was 26 years old, but was misdiagnosed and given two years of experimental group therapy to ‘enhance my masculine side’, then dumped. Twenty-five years later I was finally able to accept the truth of the condition with which I was born. After a 30 year career in Computing culminating as an IT manager, and then with my own Software Company, accepting the truth about myself also allowed me to change my course in life to something where I could help other people. I qualified as a counsellor and psychotherapist in 1997 and have since worked with a vast range of people both trans and non-trans, including people with learning disabilities. Astonishingly, the greatest support I received during transition came from my wife and we now work together to help the partners and families of other trans people, who are going through the hell that we experienced. It is our 25th Wedding Anniversary in December 2002, and we are still together, but now as very best friends. Among my proudest moments are being elected to the council of the NACHP (National Association of Counsellors, Hypnotherapists and Psychotherapists) and presenting the seminar at their 1999 AGM.
47.
JS is 52 years old and has been aware of her female gender identity since early childhood. She began a career with the Metropolitan Police and her duties included protecting Princess Margaret, however she was forced to take premature medical retirement because of her gender identity, and by her late thirties had become completely dysfunctional, unemployed and homeless.
She began to live full time in the female social role in the early 1990s, quickly regained her mind and went up to Brunel University as a mature student. Despite the difficulties caused by discrimination, stigmatisation, threats and some verbal abuse, she graduated with a BSc in Physics, also graduated with a BA from the Open University, and became an Associate Member of the Institute of Physics.
She became a competent, experienced, successful and well respected private mathematics tutor, well liked and accepted by both parents and pupils alike. However because of discrimination she was refused access to a P.G.C.E. course and thus denied the opportunity to teach mathematics in schools.
As a Salvation Army soldier, and volunteer radio operator, she assisted in the Hurricane Keith relief endeavour, was made an honorary member of US Emergency Disaster Services and operated an emergency signals station in London for the US Salvation Army in the aftermath of 9/11.
She has undergone gender reassignment surgery, something which “restored that intimate and private dignity lost at birth”. She currently ‘lives in’ with an elderly and severely disabled lady as housekeeper, care-giver and driver. She believes that the implementation of the ECHR ruling will provide her with social dignity both in life and in death.
48.
I was 42 when I finally accepted my own transsexuality and sought medical help. Up until then, I had tried everything to convince myself that I was being deluded. I had two children whom I loved dearly and I knew what consequences lay in store for me once I decided to travel that rocky journey across the genders. But travel I did and that journey gave me the strength to move into new professional pastures. On leaving the BBC and being ‘written off’ by many former colleagues, I started my own TV production company… You see, no one wanted to employ me… So I employed myself. Not only did I employ myself, but I have been able to create jobs for many other people over the years. Even so, I fear the legal implications of every move I make, whether its signing up for insurance, getting a mortgage for myself or a bank loan for my business. I deliberately restrict my social life for fear of developing a relationship. I don’t want to fall in love with someone and then have to explain why I cannot marry him.
49.
I am well past the retiring age, but still need to work. I lost all hope of work when I started treatment as a transsexual. As a WELSH CHAPEL MINISTER, their homophobic altitude meant I could no longer minister in the Chapels. As a Welsh speaker I have recently been invited by a University to prepare to work as a Welsh Tuner during the coming year. I am exited at the hope of being a useful member of my community once again.
50.
I am 35 years old and work as a teacher in charge of part of the science department in a large Northwest 11-19 school, where I really enjoy working with the the students and staff. Nobody yet knows that I am taking hormones and that in a few years time I am hoping to be teaching or lecturing as a woman once the hormones and LASER treatment have had more effect. My best friend and his girlfriend have given me a lot of support when I finally decided that they would be the first I would break the news to, after several unsuccessful heavy hints. I’ve told my parents who have yet to come to terms with it, and about my secret past, but otherwise have tried to understand.
It took until my 30s to realize I was a transsexual. The transition may cost me some friends and part of my family but I must take this journey If I wish to be at peace. Now I have started hormone treatment I feel happier and more hopeful with my emotions free from the male prison.
51.
Tamsin is 32 years old and works as a laboratory manager/technician in a biological sciences department at a major London university. Her work involves regular contacts with representatives of external suppliers and assisting with the teaching of undergraduate medical and science students. She is also actively involved in her local Labour Party, and also in her trade union.
When Tamsin transitioned 2 years ago there were few problems on the work front, but some family problems which have now been resolved. Obtaining insurance has caused some problems relating to revealing her legal gender as “male”, although some insurance companies are very helpful. Another recent worry was completing an “Appointment of Directors” form for a company. This required all previous names to be disclosed. On checking with Companies House, however, it was ascertained that this was voluntary.
Tamsin looks forward to her female gender being legally recognised. Whilst most Government agencies have been very helpful, there are still problems which need to be resolved.
52.
I am 23 and work as a freelance contemporary chamber musician, animateur and woodwind teacher for my local education service. I recently graduated with a 2:1 Hons degree in music. I came out as a transsexual lesbian at the age of 19 while I was at university, after years of confusion and denial. (Ever since my early days at school, I felt like a girl and enjoyed the feminine activities of my older sisters, but I fancied girls like boys were supposed to, even if I didn’t like any other male pursuits. — it took me a long time to accept who I really was). Luckily both my parents have been wonderfully supportive as they always knew there was something different about me as a child, and have embraced their new daughter.
I enjoy my work as a teacher, but often fear being “outed”, as there is a lot of prejudice still toward transsexual people, just like there is toward homosexuals. As someone who fits into both, I tend to keep my private life very private. After being offered my current job, I found that I had to disclose my birth gender to my new boss so that the relevant police checks could be carried out. If I had been able to show a birth certificate showing my gender as female, I may have not been outed as a matter of course — something which could have become a reason for me to be discriminated against had my manager not been so understanding.
53.
Melanie is 52 and is now a very successful Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) instructor/operator for the Inshore and Offshore Oil and Gas Industry for students entering a new and worthwhile career change. She also carries out marine operations and consultancy projects on a worldwide bases. In the 80’s she was involved in a North Sea tragic rescue operation that lead afterwards to her seeking counselling. It was during this period that her trans-sexuality surfaced to such a degree that she had to seek support from the London Institute. This transition cost her, her family, her home, some friends, loss of self respect and mounting bebt. She successfully went through the process of changing gender and hasn’t looked back. She consulted her work colleagues and found them to be very supportive of what she was going through and hoped that she would continue within the field that she was trained to do. She cleared her debts and continues to make new friends and has worked hard for a new home, which she has finally attchieved in France. She wishes that the government would allow her to change her last remaining document that of her birth certificate to that of a female and not that of a man. This would give her greater freedom, as sometimes she has to confront various authorities with photocopies of her birth certificate, which putting it mildly becomes an embarressment for both parties and totally confusses some people. Sometimes she has to explain the situation, which again is difficult for some people to comprehend in a matter of minutes.
54.
Julia is a 66 year old retired IT Professional who lives in West Yorkshire. She took a combined redundancy and retirement package 11 years ago after 25 years with a major IT organisation. She still lives with her life partner, and they have been married for 40 years. This year is their Ruby Anniversary. An irony of our present laws. Julia fought with her lifelong gender needs until she retired so that she could hold on to her job and ensure that her family was cared for. This was not easy. It was actual hell. After retirement, she decided that, at long last this was her own time, so she started on the difficult and painful journey to become Julia. In the last ten years, she has done much voluntary work, for example with the local HIV support group and with the Samaritans, to name but two. She and her partner have a wonderful group of friends, locally and countrywide, who are all fully aware of their situation and are totally supportive. Julia and her partner are members of various clubs and societies and take a full and useful part in their activities. They have a wonderful family and extended family. Five grandchildren who love to see them frequently. They totally accept Granny Julia. God forbid that the politicians force this devoted couple to divorce when the government eventually decides to give transsexual people their legal rights. It would blow their very stable and loving family asunder.
55.
Robin is a 45 year old visual artist working primarily in photography and filmmaking. He has exhibited his work throughout the world and has produced 3 photographic monographs, two as male and one as female. His short films have screened at film festivals throughout the world, as well as being screened on television in the UK. He was assigned the female gender at birth and did his best to live up to this assignment for 35 years. Robin is one of the silent minority of people who are actually intersex AND transgender. Although 99% of people perceive his gender as male he himself identifies as intergendered and transsexual and would prefer a world where gender didn´t matter.
56.
I’m a 19 year old guy living in Newcastle and to those I pass around campus I’m just an another average student. Another face in the crowd. I drink, I go out and I occasionally go to lectures. There’s just one small thing – if anyone had met me before September they would have been talking to a girl as opposed to the guy that everyone knows me as now. It’s been the hardest and best three months of my life. At long last, I feel like everyone is seeing the real me. Those who knew me before I transitioned have commented on how much more confident and happy I now am. I couldn’t have done it without the support of my friends, they’ve beeen amazing and I feel absolutely great. But at the same time it’s been very difficult explaining to my family that they actually had a son instead of a second daughter. They are still coming to terms with it, but are trying to be as supportive as they can. I am currently trying to get treatment on the NHS though it’s an uphill struggle. But I know I’ll get there one day.
57.
I am a 51 old lady working as a senior agent for a large service company; I enjoy my work, which I I am good at, and have been working for my company for the last 10 years. I have known about being trapped in the body of this man but did not tell anybody. I used to dream that one day I would wake up to be me.
I am now me and have a boyfriend Chris who I love so much. He knows about my past and he treats me as his lady though he knows we can not marry at the moment. However, one day I will but only when it the right way. I am a woman and have always been one .. just had to hide for a time. My passport now has the real me on it. Just this old paper called a birth certificate which is stopping me and Chris marrying.
58.
I am 23 and currently a student. I started to transition last year, when I finally realised why I never fitted in properly. I started on testosterone treatment January this year and will be having my double mastectomy (breast removal) in December. I want to be able to start to live my life properly, without the fear of ‘discovery’ unless it is under my terms. If I could change the gender on my birth certificate I would be able to exercise that basic privacy. I am quite young and have the rest of my life to look forward to as who I really am.
59.
I’m 48 years old, and an Integrative Psychotherapist with a practice in Oxford. I was a sickly baby, born in Romford & raised in Dagenham, often confused by the role expected of me from my earliest memories. I grew up feeling a dissapointment to my parents, but academically gifted. I was a withdrawn child, afraid of almost everything, and was ill with one problem or another my entire childhood. At 13, I finally worked out why this was, but felt that my conviction of being female was futile, and afraid, I buried my knowledge of myself under a veneer of trying to be “normal”
Despite my academic abilities, I could not settle to any one job & often changed my name to find myself. I was afraid of sexual experience because my body revolted me, & I stayed a virgin until aged 25, when I married to be “normal”.
The marriage was a horror story, I became even more withdrawn, depressed & suicidal. Finally the marriage ended, & I tried one last suicide attempt which failed despite taking a strong garden poison (tree stump killer). Noting that even suicide seemed futile, I tried to rebuild & except myself.
A few years later after a long period of weight loss I discovered I had an illness that was wasting me, it was stress induced & I was encouraged to do something about the stress. That is when I finally came out, to myself & to others & began living in role as female.
Being able to be myself made me assertive & confident, but the illness (an extreme form of Sarcoidosis) was damaging me. To date it has caused gall bladder removal, numerous kidney procedures, sparked diabetes, created DVTs & Pulmonary Emboli. Currently I take Warfarin & Insulin for life & use a power chair to get around, but I’m no longer afraid of anything.
In May 1996 I had my final surgery, which made me feel superhuman. I’m still elated and empowered from the experience. Soon after I began working voluntarily as a mental health information worker, being taken on to the staff eventually. I also worked on Mental Health telephone advice lines & became Secretary, then chair of the local residents group, and on other local community panels. All this while undergoing formal training as a counsellor & psychotherapist.
Today I am more settled than ever before, my disability causes me no great trauma. Life would be so much better though, for myself & many of my clients to have equal treatment under the law. I believe that much discrimination originates from being regarded under law as less than others, less than “normal”, an extremely subjective term.
Not everyone is as strong as I am, despite my best efforts, but legal recognition will go a long way to taking the “freakness” out of the sense of self that many of us are burdened with.
60.
I’m a 25 year old transsexual man. In my identity crisis years, I married a man and had two children. My husband has supported me throughout my transition, which is amazingly rare. Both our children are in gifted and talented classes, I’m self-employed, giving online English lessons and coaching German and English up to A-level in private lessons. I’ve successfully taught many people in the former USSR and China to speak English fluently, drastically improving their prospects, and each of these students has never questioned the fact that I am male. I don’t want to work for an employer until I can be totally sure my medical past is confidential to me and my doctor alone, so my career opportunities are limited and I suffer prejudice when applying for credit because of being both transsexual and self-employed. My marriage is a legal nightmare because my partner and I are dealt with as both a married couple and a gay couple according to rules that officials seem to make up as they go along. Despite being told that I don’t have to disclose my trans status, I’ve found situations in which I have a choice of disclosing it and opening myself to prejudice, or lying and committing fraud to avoid this, which is hardly a better solution. Twice I’ve been threatened with arrest for fraud by officials who wouldn’t accept documents in my female name, which I can’t change until I can change my birth certificate.
61.
I am a 62-year-old post operative male to female Transsexual. Six years ago I was diagnosed as Transsexual (I had no idea until then). There is no way that I am now a male, Hormonally, Physically or Mentally.
I was invalided out of the Royal Air Force in 1967 with severe depression of which I receive a war disability pension of 20%. Mentally, I am not coping very well with the constant rejection and pressure of everyday living.
I was made redundant on 31/1/02 this year. At sixty-two years of age and transgendered, I have no hope of getting a job, and would like to continue working until I am seventy. Time after time, from engineering companies to Supermarket Stores, I am rejected by prospective employers.
To compensate for my loss of a regular income and to be able to meet our financial commitments my ‘Wife’ and ‘Companion’ of 35 years – a Nursing Sister – has had to increase her working hours to a minimum of seventy each week with additional agency work. As we can’t afford a bricks and mortar home we will lose our secure (holiday) mobile home, from which we are legally evicted for two months every year (another cruel burden).
I cannot officially retire until I am sixty-five and am not eligible for my retirement pension until then. The Government policy of socially isolating us is very cruel and vindictive, and can only give the green light to the thugs in our respective areas to target us.
62.
LT is 41and a female-to-male transman. He is a post-graduate research student at Lancaster University, who is in the process of writing-up his thesis on Gender Transitions. He also teaches in Gender Studies and Sociology. LT transitioned nearly 5 years ago during his undergraduate degree, and has never looked back. He received a great deal of support from staff and friends in the department at the University, as well as friends and family. Prior to transitioning LT had a troubled life where he felt he did not ‘fit in’ at all in female role. Much of it had beenspent suffering from depression and being in and out of work. He now has a partner who has a child and is very happy in his new role as a male carer. The future looks very bright for LT now as he will be a full-time lecturer and researcher and will be buying property and settling down with his partner and her child.
63.
I am 48 and have worked as a publisher and promoter for 15 years. I employ part time a number of people from the transgender community. It has taken many years for me and my female partner to understand that I cannot define my gender as purely male as given at birth. I am happy for others to take me as a man or woman as they percive me and most percieve me as female. I have supportive friends and but have lost my blood family to ignorance. We all need the right to be the gender that we are percieved as and that we feel comfortable with.
64.
I am a 46 years old man, with a grown up son, a girlfriend of 11 months standing (sitting, and sometimes lying down!), am divorced and, at present, living with a friend. Up until 6 years ago, however, I was a woman, with a teenage son still at home, married to the man I live with, who I am honoured to call “friend”.
I announced my decision to change, from female to male, right in the middle of my son’s GCSE’s. My parents were horrified, although they say that, looking back, they can “see it all now”. I was employed until recently as a factory worker, and transitioned during this employment ( I was there for 3 years prior to, and 6 years post, transition). Everyone at work accepted me as I was and slipped very easily into the name and appearance change. My family have become used to the “new” me and say that I am a much more together person now, and are pleased that I no longer have the terrible bouts of depression that plagued nearly all my adult life.
My ex-husband of 29 years, and my son, have supported me throughout, which is an incredible testament to the character of people who accept me for me. I am also pleased to say that vitually ALL my friends have displayed this same quality. My new partner, with whom I hope to live quite soon, also accepts and appreciates me for who I am and we eventually wish to marry.
65.
I am a 22 years old transsexual man who transitioned a year ago. I see an NHS gender specialist and receive testosterone injections and I am currently waiting for FTM chest reconstruction surgery (bi-lateral double mastectomy) on the NHS. I suffered intense depression and gender dysphoria throughout my teenage years that nearly cost me my life. My gender issues also led to my parents throwing me out and I ended up homeless for several months. Now that I live successfully in the male gender, my depression has resolved and I am finally able to live a happy and fulfilling life. I have never had a job paying other than the minimum wage however, so I cannot afford surgery privately and I am dependent on NHS provision. My gender specialist has told me that it will be difficult to get my womb and ovaries removed on the NHS and virtually impossible to get any genital sex reassignment surgery. I hope that the New Labour government will realise that any insistence on surgery beyond mastectomy for FTM transsexual people would unfairly make legal gender recognition available only to those rich enough to go private and penalise those who are poor like me for the lack of NHS FTM genital surgery.
66.
C was up until 1997 the senior vice president of a European Oil Company and seconded for the final year of that directorship as personal adviser to a senior member of the Saudi Royal Family and based in Geneva/ Middle East. C was also a member of the Bow Group at Westminster during 1997 and close friend of leading politicians in the former Government. Resigning all in 1998 to transition from male to female, this was a major decision and not without considerable cost on all fronts, although all family and latterly former business colleagues have been 100% supportive. Returning to University in 2000 to read a masters in Business IT as a woman, C has now re-entered some of the previous business circles cautiously but quite successfully and has been fortunate enough to make many new friends along the way. C is very disappointed about the lethargic attitude of HMG to instigate the ruling of Goodwin into UK Law, but is confident that these changes cannot be procrastinated for too long. To do so is illegal, backward and a blatant deprivation of human rights and is unsustainable for any modern day administration who advocates any form of social justice and advancement. C is not interested in “still lurking” minority prejudicial attitudes of a former era and believes that people should be treated entirely on their merits as individuals regardless of gender or “former gender”… as those latter factors are frankly irrelevant. C will continue to lobby behind the scenes and to assist all trans people where at all possible and where ever they may be.
67.
C is a post operative TS woman in her early fifties. She lived for almost half a century unhappily and unfulfilled, despite some material success. Eventually she had to make the necessary changes to survive and since her transition in 1999 has lived successfully as the woman she is. She was employed as a Management Accountant for a large UK retailer at the time of her transition, and whilst the company was exceptionally supportive, a number of colleagues were less so. However she has recently left the employer she had been with for 11 years to join a Government agency in the Finance function. She was successful in obtaining the role in the face of strong candidates and has integrated exceptionally well with her new colleagues. Her past is unknown to her new employers, and she has had no problems whatsoever. She is now able to enjoy life as never before, and her former partner continues to share a house with her, their relationship now hat of ‘sisters’ and best friends. She is fortunate in that, despite transitioning so late in life she is able to go abut her daily routine as a normal, well adjusted and happy woman in society. Her interests are many and varied, and she is active in the local community. The only difficulties she now faces are those imposed by current legislation and her lack of legal recognition for her status within the UK.
68.
I am 29 years old and a post-operative male-to-female transsexual. I am a paramedic, a career I truly love, and I live with my female partner who was fortunate to have been born with a female body. I knew I was a girl from the age of 5 and at 16 I saw a NHS psychiatrist who insisted that I could be “cured”. His treatment destroyed the next 10 years of my life and lead to severe depression, suicidal thoughts, anxiety, self-harm and a near complete withdrawal from society. I had to fight every step of the way with a less-than-supportive, prejudiced, doctor and some harassment from neighbours. My parents are proud and supportive of me and I have received lots of support from my colleagues too. I have now put my depression behind me and am living my life for the very first time as opposed to simply existing. I have taken up snowboarding and hope to become good enough for competitions although I fear that my birth gender will always hold me back. My birth certificate does not reflect who I know myself to be, have always known, and it certainly does not reflect on how I look today. It has become an Achilles heel.
69.
Kate is 52 (and more than happy to admit it). I have known since I was four that there was something amiss and despite a difficult time finally got around to doing something about it in the early 1980s and had GRS in 1987. I have very supportive friends (those that know) and family. I live by myself (my preference) with my two beloved Burmese cats.
The same large, and hugely supportive, company has happily employed me for 25 years (and I hope to do at least another 5). I know they value me for my skills. My gender is now not important to them now but my comfort in my new gender in 1980s was a priority to my then Personnel Manager.
I am very involved in a number of local organisations and company secretary of one of them.
I was born in New Zealand – a most forward-looking country – who has allowed a change of birth certificate since 1995. I took advantage of this in 2000 and have managed to change all my NZ and UK records (including my retirement date and pension entitlement) because of this change in birth certificate.
I wonder why an accident of birth (in that I was born in New Zealand but work in the United Kingdom) should allow me to change all my records yet those born in the United Kingdom should not be allowed such a basic human right.
70.
I am forty-two now. For me, life really began at forty, because that was the age at which I transitioned from female to male. I work as a technical training advisor for a major cinema chain. Basically, that means I teach people how to be cinema projectionists. The company were extremely sympathetic and helpful during my transition, which all went very smoothly. In fact, I often feel that I have been much luckier than many transsexual people. My family and friends were accepting and I have had no problems at work or in the small village where I live.
After years of trying to deny my problem, but always coming back to the knowledge that my body and brain were out of sync with each other, I finally took that big step. At last I have reached a point where I can settle down and enjoy life just like everyone else. Except that I am still not legally male. If I wanted to marry a woman, I couldn’t.(Although the quirk of the law which deems me female forever, my birth certificate unchangeable, means that I could marry a man if I so wished). And on a more mundane level, any time I need to produce my birth certificate I know that there may be awkward questions and embarrassment.
I wish the government would put this right promptly, because as the law currently stands many people are being denied a basic human right available to everyone else in this country.
71.
I am a 32 year old Assistant cook, in a Social Services day centre, for adults with learning difficulties. I have been with my partner for almost thirteen years. We would like to be married in the church which my partner regularly attends, and be able to enjoy the same legal right’s as other married couples. I should also like to be legally recognised as the father of any child we may have through donor insemination. Only one or two people know where I work that I have not always been the man that I am today.
72.
I reach the age of 45 next week, having spent the first 40 years living and projecting the image of a man, not having the courage until 1998 to tell anybody that it was wrong, that I would rather be living as a woman and if I didn’t do anything about it, I would mentally fall apart.
I did not know very much about it, so once I had gradually told my family, friends and work colleagues, I transitioned and simply began living as a woman. I never felt happier and developed a life that I felt should always have been. It wasn’t until after I had transitioned, that I came up against anybody telling me I couldn’t live as I wanted. My MP, my pension company, life insurance supplier and the registrar of births all told me that I couldn’t legally correct my gender.
Despite, successfully adapting to a hormone regime and having genital recontruction surgery, it is a constant reminder to me when I have to divulge my past to people who have no right to know that much about me and I feel embarrassed and humiliated when I project the image of a woman and just want to get on with life, but people look at me and just know about my medical condition and all about me.
I also had a problem with my employer, a wholesaler in the home entertainment sector, who simply didn’t understand and would not accept my transition. In the end, after 23 years working my way up from the shop floor to senior management level, the constant discrimination got so bad that I had to leave. Two weeks later, I found myself another job where they don’t know about my past but I’m frightened they will find out from the inland revenue or some other official body.
Since July 2002, my pension company and insurance providers have all agreed to correct my gender notes on their files, but I don’t understand why I am still obliged to tell some people I am a male, when clearly I am not.
73.
I am 37, and transitioned from female to male when I was 35 years old. I reached mid life before I realised I am transexual, and could no longer bear living in a female gender role which had always felt completely wrong. I spent many years avoiding the world and hiding, and feeling very angry.
Since transitioning I have felt that I can finally join the human race, and have become a full time student studying a BA degree in Japanese. I support myself by working part time as a drug and alcohol rehabilitation worker in a residential treatment centre, helping addicts and alcoholics recover. I am myself a recovered addict and use my experience to help others. I also run my own business giving a variety of therapies to clients on a one to one basis. I will be living in Japan for a year from next year as a guest of their education system, and will attend University there. I hope to go on to study for a degree in Chinese medicine and acupuncture over there, and then set up practise here.
Now that I have been able to transition, through hormone treatment (testosterone) and chest surgery, I feel I can do anything that I set out to do. Before I felt utterly hopeless. The difference is astonishing. I will be going to Japan as I live the rest of my life – as male – which my passport states I am. Why can’t I have full legal recognition as a man? When I die why should my next of kin have to get a death certificate that says I am female? Why should I be denied the right to ever marry?
74.
Hi! I’m Asalyn. Im 25 years old and I’m studying/working in and around London. I was born in Hull as Isaac, but have always been a girl, I have fought the system for treatment since I was 13 and failed.
Just recentlty, I managed to gain NHS funding for hormone treatment.
I went full time into my correct gender when I was 18 years old. Also at age 18, I was brutally atacked and left for dead while living in Scarborough. I have been discriminated against in all sectors. Now all I want is the chance to live at peace.
75.
J is 39 years old, lives in Nottingham and works in low paid jobs working up to 60 hours a week. He used to work at a University in Research but left after his 8-year relationship to his then partner failed acrimoniously. He has a 2(ii) Honours Degree in Paramedical Sciences but is unable to utilise his skills and experience because of sustained abuse from his family.
J has been trapped in a cycle of denying and expressing his Transexuality because his Mother had been a prominent Health professional. J’s transexuality was treated as a severe psychiatric disorder where his mother retained control through the use of tranquillisers. This has helped to undermine J’s career potential. Fortunately, friends and his current partner have helped J maintain his independence and are supporting him through his transition. J is unable to privately fund his transition and has a deep-seated fear of Health Care workers and those who stand in authority, so his transition is likely to be a Catch 22.
Apart from this aspect to his transition, J is rebuilding his life and it is noticeable that he feels more confident and able to express himself as he is. J is a deeply private person and in the past had been highly visible in political campaigns for increased awareness of Equal Opportunity, LGBT issues and Health and Safety in Higher Education. He is unable to put himself forward for careers that will utilise his potential because he fears that his transsexual nature will bar entrance.
76.
Born in 1954, one of dissimilar twins, I have two adult children and a steady relationship with a loving and accepting woman. Although of a warm and outgoing nature, after a deeply unhappy and lonely childhood, a traumatic adolescence, and many painful adult years of feeling alienated from my own self, finally I found the courage to acknowledge what was wrong. Through physical transition, others are enabled to experience me as I experience my self: male.
Training as a counsellor, I’m currently working in psychiatric care. A professional painter, too, I am illustrating a children’s book written by my partner — herself an experienced psychotherapist and published writer. Ours is a richly rewarding, committed relationship – welcomed and supported not only by our friends and colleagues, but also by our parents, our children, and their children.
Last May we made promises to each other in a blessing ceremony, as enduring as any marriage vows — in the absence of legal recognition of this human right. I am a man, she is a woman. As a female she may marry a male. Due to an (understandable) error of recognition of my true gender at birth, the law continues to regard me as female; therefore, this male may only marry another male! I ask that the law be amended immediately in respect of those who are not the gender as recorded at birth, including this grandfather and grandmother. May we be given the acceptance and dignity in law that is everyone’s common human right.
77.
I am a 46 year old trans woman. I live in London with my female partner. I am a musician, playing sessions and performances in my own right and as part of other peoples’ projects. I have varied interests, and am a patron of a charity helping women and their families living with HIV and Aids.
I lived in denial of my trans-ness until my early thirties, fearful of the consequences. By 1988, I could no longer run from facing my issues, and for 6 years went through the NHS system until I had surgery in 1995. As a result I had to walk away from my home, my partner, my former life, many of my friends and some of my family. I am fortunate that I never have to provide a birth certificate for my work, but have experienced humiliation on many occasions when forced to reveal my trans status when a BC or my National Insurance number was required.
I believe I have the right to privacy about my history, and the right to dignity and self-respect as an individual, and while things remain unchanged, this will never be a possibility.
78.
I was aware of gender problems from an early age, but thought at that stage my feelings were “normal” because I had no one to compare them with. As I got older I became very aware that I was “different” to others of my physical sex and age. I began cross dressing at about the age of nine and contunued it until I was about 18. For some reason my cross dressing stopped – maybe it was because I was caught up in going to University etc. I thought my feelings were all behind me, but they flared up again when I was about 27. I began cross dressing again and by the time I was 45 I was going out regularly. Shortly afterwards, in 1992, I told my family – I had married and had children during the “latent” period. They seemed to cope but I could not control my feelings ,in the way they wished me to, and decided to transition in 1998. I began hormone therapy in March 1999 and eventually was referred to the Leeds Gender Identity Clinic. I began living “full time” in June 2000 and had Gender Reassignment Surgery on the NHS in April 2002. Eventually, my marriage gave way and i was divorced, amicably, in September 2002.
I hold down four jobs , three of which are paid. I am a teacher , I set and mark examination papers for a national body, I am an author, work for the Citizens Advice Bureau and consider that I make a useful contribution to society. Though I have suffered and witnessed much tragedy in the last year, I am happier than at any time in my life, although I am acutely aware of the effect my feelings have had on others. I have formed new relationships with my ex wife and children and we understand and respect each other’s feelings more than we have done for years.
79.
SHARON IS A VERY CONFUSED INDIVIDUAL about many things — but not her gender. I was positive very early on my life that I was a little bit different from the more common or garden variety of boy. Very quickly into my teens I started to attach the right sounding words to my predicament. Unfortunately my mother’s dictionary didn’t contain the word transsexual, so it took a few more years to learn the more medical term, although the accurate one to describe who I am is ….”A woman”.
I began a career in computing until 1997 when I was made redundant for financial reasons just one month after beginning my life properly as Me. Yes Really it was financial .. honestly. That’s what they said anyway.
Since then, though with bouts of unemployment, I now work for NHS as a Computer Systems Administrator. Although I don’t hide my transsexuality, I certainly don’t advertise it from the Roof Tops or wish for people to know without a damned good reason. That should be my prerogative, no one else’s.
When I was first offered the position in the NHS, my Birth Certificate was requested. I felt a criminal as I strove to protect my privacy. I felt the truth would threaten a position I had rightfully won as a woman for the sake of a piece of paper written 32 years earlier, and which bore no resemblance to my life today.
Fortunately my passport got me through that time, but how many times more in my life am I going to be reminded of a forgotten history by others, when I am not a criminal? And why is British Law making me FEEL like one over my gender?
80.
I don’t remember much of my childhood, although my parents were Christian and very loving I get a strong feeling I spent most of my time very unhappy and alone. I started facing up to who I really am whilst still working for BT as an engineer.
After spending the final 3 years of my job at BT in deep depression I left an 8 year career to start my own business and spend more time with my wife, who at that time was entering into end stage renal failure.
We’d been married 15 years and she was looking forward to the conclusion of my transition just as much as I was, but unfortunately she passed away in October 2002, which now makes me a single parent.
Despite all this I’m now 2 years into transition, I’m 35 and run my own business centred around IT and business to business services. I consider myself to be a very productive member of society; I’m very well thought of among my peers and have a huge circle of non-trans friends. Despite all these positives I still have one big negative — the fear of problems being caused by my birth certificate still declaring me to be male. It’s one big kick in the guts every time I have to produce the thing, life would be so much simpler if it said Girl instead of Boy.
81.
I am a 42 year old Studio Manager at the BBC. I have worked for the Corporation for 19 years and have been employed on various roles such as Instructor, Resource Development Manager, and as Technical advisor/manager on a number of major projects including the new DAB radio stations and re-development of studio areas within the BBC. I studied at University for B Mus. and recently achieved MA in Electroacoustic composition. I have written forty four albums, act as an “extra” in films and dramas when I can, and am a Trustee of a Gender related charity. I simply try to exist as a normal female human being.
I began my “change” to become visually female (including the change of my name to Janine and legal documentation) in 1996. I had known from before my teens that I was not male, though had unsuccessfully tried to live as one. Whilst I fit in well within society now and am perfectly female in looks and personality, I have suffered much discrimination from the church, the BBC, and even from the courts, where I have only been allowed access to my children supervised 2 hours a fortnight. This is simply because I am a Transsexual person.
82.
I am 24 I and currently work as an HCA in a Bristol Hospital. Currently none of my colleagues know my past, although they are vaguely aware of a troubled and difficult history.
In my spare time I run my own company – which is run with someone who does know my past and doesn’t care about it. Fairly much all of my close friends know my past, and those who knew me before have without exception been very supportive of me – although most of them had guessed that I was different.
My family were also very supportive, particularly as I came back out of the shell I’d built around myself and started being more human and productive again. I’m currently waiting for my long-term partner to move over from Ireland; she’s hoping to come over in the next couple of months. Most of the time I forget that I’m trans now, and then I apply for jobs, or credit and am issued a sharp reminder that I am regarded as different.
83.
I am a 34yr old post-operative transsexual woman, born in the old Charing Cross Hospital, and treated for the transsexual condition in the new one.
I feel passionately about the work of the NHS. Shortly after completing my A’ levels I joined the London Ambulance Service, and worked on the city’s emergency ambulances for nine years before changing my career path and moving into IT. I guess I am versatile, but then I’ve had to be. I now work as a systems administrator within the NHS. Caring and working for the people with the people is where I feel happiest, but as always there is something missing. It needed a highly skilled surgeon to remove a body part that didn’t fit in, and whilst I wait for the man to say “I do”, I will be waiting on a government to say “I care”. Please can I have my birth certificate, and please can I have my life?
84.
For most of my sixty years I have been trying to cope with a world that expected me to be male. I tried to externalise the problems that arose, in marriage and career: but once I realised that since all the problems were with different people or external situations, and that the only common factor was me, I looked at what it might be in me and the penny dropped!
Since that day, nearly four years ago, I’ve never looked back: I was extraordinarily fortunate to be able to get through transition to surgery in only two years. I’ve had other blessings: being early retired, I work part time for the Open University, who have been very supportive.
Many staff and all my students are quite unaware that I’ve ever been anything but a woman. (Well, I haven’t, really!) My Mum, when I told her, said she wasn’t surprised as she’d always thought me and my sister were the wrong way round. I know many trans people have lost family, friends and/or jobs: I’ve been so blessed to lose none of these. Now I’m fighting for my pension at 60.
85.
I am a 40 year old chartered civil engineer. I am a female to male transsexual and transitioned 6 years ago after years of suppressing my true identity. My son, now 15, was 9 at the time, and I went through absolute hell while trying to reconcile his need for a consistent parent and my need to be a man. I eventually decided that to serve him truly as a parent I needed to serve myself. I was becoming incapable of tending to his needs as a child. Having transitioned I blossomed into a relaxed confident and happy man, and my son is making me proud as he is growing into a young man too.
After years of life as a single parent, I am now living with my fiancée, and we are looking forward to the time that we can make our relationship formal through marriage. My family and friends are at a loss to understand why this right is currently denied to transsexuals in Britain.
I am proud to be me, and to be transsexual. I feel that the experiences given to me have allowed me to become a well rounded person in all aspects of life.
86.
I am a 45 year old trans-woman, homemaker and work part time as a freelance electronics design consultant.
I have always felt that I was a girl from my earliest recollections, around the age of three. Unfortunately my body was not in accord with this. I was bullied most of the time I was at boarding school – from the ages of seven until sixteen – for being different.
I had no idea about Gender Dysphoria until my early thirties. Until then it had been a fearful and hidden secret. I had no idea how to cope with it, yet it caused my life to be utterly miserable (and those were the good days).
In 1995 my gender identity issues became too much to cope with any longer and I finally accepted the need to transition or perish. I was fortunate to have the support of my mother but I was disowned by my adoptive father when he got news about my transition from some third party – without even seeing me.
I lost my house and became bankrupt in 1997 as I was unable to get freelance work or find employment after I had started transition. I had applied for several positions with companies but was obliged to declare my status as despite full female ID in all other respects the Birth Certificate still showed a male name and gender. Needless to say none of my applications were successful.
I have not seen my two children for over five years. I miss them both very much but I have been forbidden to see or have any form of contact with them by my ex partners.
I have suffered from depression due to loss of contact with my children, and through the attitudes of individuals and society towards transsexual people. However, most of all I have suffered as a result of my lack of a proper status, and vulnerability which comes from still being legally male.
Despite all these things I am happier as a whole woman than I have ever been before in my life as at long last I am a whole person. I would do the same again, even knowing the difficulties, as it was a matter of survival not choice.
I hope that the government that I voted for will finally acknowledge us as real people and give us full legal status under British law.
87.
I am a 45 year old transsexual woman. I work as a project manager in the Audio Visual / staging industry, and I finally came to terms with my condition in my 30’s.
I went to an all boys school and was pretty hopeless at competing at all the typical boys stuff; for me it was the equivalent of a prison sentence and I couldn’t wait to leave that all male environment. Once in the work place things were better: I got a job in the music industry as a record promoter. This was in the 1970’s and I started to experiment with my sexuality and cross dressing, but my transsexual “condition” remained a secret. I was a workaholic and became a director of a public company but became more and more unhappy with my “lot”. I ended up moving to Los Angeles where I finally came out. I returned to London 10 years ago to start my new life and have my sex change surgery.
My friends and family were very supportive. I was fortunate that I found employment back in the industry in which I had previously worked. The people there are aware of my situation. However my clients have no idea. I get on with my life, which has just got better and better as I am totally accepted in my “correct” gender. However, I find it hard to accept that I have gone through everything only to still have to declare my gender as “male” on certain legal documents.
88.
I am 39. I am one of three siblings born of wonderful parents. I have the best of friends. I have earned my role in senior management for an established media services company. I am the proud owner of a new home. I am free of any criminal record and a consistent taxpayer. I am a peaceful lover of animals and one who tries her best to share in and contribute to the community around me. I love and am loved. I am of Britain.
This is my life.
This is my life without law.
I am a woman who cannot marry. I am told that I am not as I seem. I am told that I am not as I feel. I am the Miss that is missed. I am not safe in my own knowledge. I am the unacceptable face of self-determination. I gave every penny I had. I am a decade of hormone treatment. I am years of scorching lasers. I am thrice cut by surgeons. I am the appeared who has disappeared. I may not give all that I have nor receive all that I am due. I am not free. I live in the state of denial. I am of Britain.
I know the life I want and deserve. From this country I can just about see it.
89.
I am a Transman (Female to Male Transsexual). I was born with a female body but even as a small child I felt I was a boy not a girl.
As I grew up the feeling remained but at the time there did not seem to be any alternative to living with a female identity. However, as far as possible I lived like a man, wearing men’s clothes and doing a male job. I have been employed as a technician in the Engineering Faculty of a large university for the past 17 years. I have lived with my (female) partner for 20 years. When we first met she thought I was a man and that is how she has always viewed me.
I am now 50 years old. 6 years ago at age 44 I underwent Gender Reassignment and transitioned to the male identity. I now live and work as a man and look like any other guy (complete with beard). My work colleagues all accept me as male and my transition has caused no problems at work.
My partner and I have been going to Church (C of E) regularly since 1990 and have always been accepted as a couple. When I transitioned, one of our church friends asked if we were going to marry. I told him we were forbidden by law. But my partner and I do want to get married. We are waiting for the law to change so that we can.
90.
The Partner’s tale:
I met my partner through a church friend 10 years ago, and a week after our early decision that we’d like to see a great deal more of each other he told me about his medical history. He had completed his transition successfully 10 years prior to our meeting, but telling me was still a real ordeal. Although I did my best to understand, there are many levels of ‘understanding’ for a partner to go through. Occasionally I felt so confused I didn’t quite know where to turn. I know there were times when I unintentionlly hurt him in my efforts to learn about his condition from scratch, and come to terms with what it would mean for us as a couple.
Marriage of course is the big one. Once we had decided that we wanted to be together for life, we were able to arrrange for a blessing service where we were married before God. It was a great comfort to know that the C of E minister who conducted our ceremony, his Bishop and the Chancellor (the Bishop’s legal advisor in church matters) were entirely comfortable with our stance and supported our relationship as completely valid. We think of ourselves as married, and present as man and wife socially, but on legal forms etc. I have to tick ‘single’ e.g. on my Criminal Records Bureau form which my employer will see this week, and I had to do the same on the Census form last year. I mind this very much.
I began to find out that whereas my medical history was still largely private, as it should be, my husband’s can not be in all sorts of circumstances, and this affects me too. For instance, I wrote to the NHS Pension Fund to ask how I could ensure that he would be treated as my spouse if I die first, meaning of course that I had to declare his medical condition. More than 20 years pension contributions from my hard-earned wages would die with me otherwise. This I was informed is not possible, and since 1996, I have been helped to challenge this legally through the Courts. He had to nominate me as the prefered beneficiary of his company pension fund, but it will be granted to me after his death only if the Trustees see fit. Should he die before me, another battle will commence because we have agreed that I will refuse to register his death inaccurately as a female.
Our relationship has developed and deepened over our years together, and I can say without hesitation that through all the ups and downs of life he is my best friend, spiritual companion and the only lover I want or need. We meet the challenges and unusual aspects of the physical expression of our love with inventiveness and a sense of humour, but we both still feel at times that loss which can never be completely overcome when a body is incomplete, and I feel sad that this must still be so for him in spite of our happiness. He will probably not elect to have a phalloplasty. Although I would not want to stop him, I do fear the toll it would take in terms of the extensive surgery, potential complications and the uncertainty of the cosmetic results. Luckily I had never wanted children, and he was resigned to his inability to biologically father any children, even though this was a part of life that he would have relished. So we greatly enjoy our collection of nephews, nieces and godchildren and give thanks for the peace when they go home!
We have been fortunate to have the unconditional support of both our families, and close friends with whom we have shared our situation. I can only pay tribute to them all, but most of all to my partner himself. I’m an ordinary heterosexual woman, and he’s just a normal, well-balanced, heterosexual man – but a very remarkable one too, who has suffered a great deal mentally and physically through a mere accident of birth. I just hope that the forthcoming legislation will at last make life easier for him and all those who, through no fault of their own or (as yet) known cause, find themselves in the same situation.
91.
I am 21 year old woman, from the south. I am self-employed, running a home based business in database and website design.
I remember being aware of being female since I was about 5 years old. Until my 5th year of school I was fairly open about myself, not pretending to be anyone I wasn’t. Nearly all my friends were girls, I would play and talk with them, and avoid “boy games”. At home I was the same. I didn’t identify myself as male at all.
However after this age I suffered a lot of torment from others and unconvincingly tried to “fit in”. Over time I became convinced I was the only person in the world like this, and that I must be crazy. In my teens I went into a long period of self-denial, suppressing my own self. I moved around a lot, becoming increasingly disorientated and confused.
Following a brief marriage, I finally admitted to myself that I could never live as a male. I found out as much as I could, and came out to my family, who were extremely supportive and not terribly suprised. I have begun treatment, and have become far calmer, less shy and far happier than I was, and increasingly comfortable with myself. Most days I do not dread the mirror, although I still have a way to go before I can honestly say I am happy with my body, bit by bit it improves. And soon, I can drop my little male puppet once and for all.
92.
RH is 46 years old, and has only just begun his transition. He was never able to identify as a ‘proper’ woman, despite two marriages and five children. The maternal instincts simply weren’t there in the first marriage, and he left his two children with their father, unable to cope with the role expected of him.
He became alcoholic, but has now been sober for 14 years. After the alcohol came addictions to gambling, credit cards and food. Finally the recovery programme of Overeaters Anonymous obliged him to consider his buried gender issues.
For many years his bisexuality seemed explanation enough for his strong masculine tendencies. He could never master the art of make-up, and avoided any social occasion which would require formal feminine clothes. If he was forced to wear a skirt it had to be full length as he hated tights and couldn’t bring himself to shave his legs. The crisis came as he approached middle age, and saw all his female friends increasingly relying on make-up and dyeing their hair, and he knew he just couldn’t do that.
RH has now been on testosterone for two months, mercifully with the blessing of his family.
93.
I am rapidly nearing sixty after deciding to transition from female to male at 52. This was a difficult decision which had avoided for most of my life.
My sexuality became very clear in my early teens, but I still attempted to conform by marrying and having a son in my early twenties. Prior to my marriage, I had been in the army, where my relationship as a woman was tacitly accepted, though I was investigated whilst serving with the Intelligence Corps.
After the army (and bringing my son up alone) I had a number of long-term relationships with women, all of which foundered on my confusion about the relationship. Somehow I found being a lesbian difficult; I couldn’t explain it very clearly except to say that I felt I was male. The sexual part of the relationship was particularly fraught as I would prefer not to be touched or to be naked. I was repeatedly told that I had a beautiful body and should enjoy it, but could not.
During this time I was working – first as a primary school teacher, and later as an Executive Officer in the civil service. Later I returned to teaching, finally rising to the position of Department Head in Further Education.
One of the things I found most difficult at work was the sexism – men doing men’s jobs, and the undercurrent of sexuality that existed between the men and women. Though equal opportunities and anti-discrimination were the flavours of the times, I knew that “coming out” as gay would be the end of my career, and “coming out” as transsexual would have meant the end of my job.
I was also a member of the Stonewall Group, and was significant in persuading them to fight for equal rights to marriage and inheritance. However I was ignored after suggesting that I could represent the trans community on this group and was excluded from their mailings.
Eventually, under increasing strain, and at a time of threatened redundancy for all older FE staff, I succumbed to stress and retired on ill-health. It still took two years for me to accept that my change was inevitable. since then I have transitioned fairly successfully and have found a variety of work. I have however lost my son, as he is embarrassed by me. I now therefore live alone.
I have fought successfully with my Health Authority to have a double mastectomy; and, very recently a first stage phalloplasty. Perhaps one of the most difficult parts of the transition however is the endeavour to socialise as a single older man with no history locally, and no desire to sit in a pub, or go to church. I am working on this, and on finding a partner, and hope to live the last third of my life more happily than the years before.
94.
I am a 33 year old trans person. I currently work for my local District Council as an Analyst programmer. I have worked here since I left school and have had a number of jobs within the organisation.
When I transitioned several years ago it obviously came as a bit shock to some. But everyone has accepted me for the woman that I am. I work with more than of 500 people, who together represent a very diverse local communty from all ethnic groups and backgrounds, and no one at all has any issues with me or condition.
I don’t believe that I work with the 500 most open minded people in the country. They are all just normal people, trying to live their lives in the best way they can. I just want the same right.
I would like to think that I live a worthy life and contribute to society in the best way that I can, by being a hard working, caring and law abiding citizen. All I ask in return, is to be treated and accepted by the UK government, as a normal woman and allowed the opportunity to live a normallife with all the rights afforded to everyone else.
Is that really a lot to ask ?
95.
I am the Managing Director of a medical equipment manufacturing company, having worked in the same company since leaving University College Swansea in the early ’80s.
When I finally faced the truth about myself in the summer of ’98 it ended my marriage. Neverthreless, my 9 year old son still comes to stay every school holidays with myself and my 2 partners.
I met K & P about 6 months after transitioning and the 3 of us just clicked and we’ve been living together in a poly triad of 1 man & 2 women for the past 3 years. I have been an active campaigner on various aspects of sexuality including the rights of same-sex partners though I don’t expect to see official recognition for polyamorous relationships in my lifetime I am also an occasional lecturer and nude model in connection with BDSM and have done filming for the BBC on the same subject.
This summer after extensive nagging by friends I got round to taking my bike test and joined the band of biker babes thus adding one more female to the male dominated world of bike riders.
96.
I am a forty-eight year old woman (in the biological/chromosomal sense) and have felt discomfort at the demand to fit into the two-gendered system since my earliest childhood.
Like many people in my situation (and there are many!) my personal identity has had to be slowly constructed from a mass of often seemingly contradictory evidence – how I “saw” myself, who I “fancied”, and what my feelings about “being female” were at any one time. It has been a long journey, but as I approach the second half of my life, I find that the “transgendered” identity is the one with which I am most comfortable.
I suppose I am lucky to be able to live in my body without feeling an overwhelming need for medical help or surgery; others are not so fortunate, and their stories are those of remarkable courage and persistence often in the face of terrible hostility and ignorance. To live as who we truly feel ourselves to be must surely be the most fundamental human right. Many of those cultures that the West would call “primitive” understand this, and people who can challenge or cross gender boundaries are highly respected as possessors of the wisdom of both sexes. My own situation, I feel, is one of awareness of my two-spiritedness; it is a privilege rather than a pathology, but it has taken so long to realise this and live with it!
In my job as an adult education tutor delivering courses in cultural diversity in a Greater Manchester hospital, I take care to include transgender identity in our sessions on patient care. When I hear of my sisters and brothers who have taken the great step to undergo gender reassignment, and are then treated in law as half-people, my heart goes out to them. How is it that they can be legally recognised as their true sex in some situations but not in others? Why are they denied the right to marry and raise a family? Why are they persecuted at work and sacked from positions which they have held responsibly for years? Why does a supposedly civilised society abuse,attack and even murder those whose transsexuality or transsexual history is discovered?
One day even the 21st century wil be ancient history. I would like to think that I lived in a time where my “difference” was welcomed and, perhaps, encouraged discussion about the system of “gendering” to which society so rigidly adheres. Only appropriate legislation, backed by education, will begin to create an environment in which the true nature of every person will be allowed to flourish.
97.
I am a 36 year old Oxbridge graduate who has transitioned from female to male. My (female) partner and I recently celebrated our thirteenth anniversary. It is of the utmost concern to us that we are denied the right to marry currently afforded to any other heterosexual couple and hence the right to the attendant financial and next of kin rights others take for granted. We are often asked by people who don’t know my history when we plan to marry. What can we say? Only that we hope to get around to it soon.
98.
I’m a transsexual man aged 46. I changed over 27 years ago. In the 1970s I couldn’t pursue my ambition to become a music teacher, because of discrimination. So for years I worked in casual jobs. But for the last 17 years I’ve worked in housing associations.
Housing associations provide accommodation and various kinds of personal and community support, to people who couldn’t get a home otherwise. I worked my way up from the bottom, starting as a shift worker in a night shelter. That made me realise I’m lucky. People had appalling problems yet lived with dignity and behaved with kindness. Later I became a project manager, running hostels for homeless men with mental health and alcohol issues. Again I learned something about human nature. The staff worked devotedly for little money and gained my total respect.
Eventually I graduated to the head office where I was finally able to use my brain. I’m still doing well. Just spent the last 18 months as a consultant employed by the National Housing Federation, helping housing associations and charities to cope with new funding and quality systems for supported and sheltered housing. After Christmas I’ll move again to become Director of Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisations — I’m really looking forward to it.
I reckon I’ve been very successful against all the odds. But the problem isn’t with ordinary people. I’ve been completely “out” at work since 1985 and have never, ever had a problem with employers, colleagues or clients.
99.
I am a 50 year transperson, a company director, working near Brighton. I first presented with a ‘problem’ to my GP when I was 16. He suggested that I would end up in an institution. What actually happened was me ending up with an alcohol problem and too many difficult years suppressing what I new to be true.
At 49 years old I could not supress my feelings any longer and started living full time as Beverley, I have been very lucky, everyone including my family has accepted and supported my decision. Life for me has improved by 100 percent however I still have the fear of having to reveal my past when applying for insurances etc. I have to make a desicion every time I fill in an application, do I reveal my past or risk problems later?
I hope and pray that with the decision of the Europeon Court of Human rights this government will finally allow us to change our birth certificates allowing me and many others to live a normal peaceful existance
100.
I am a 35 year old person who happens to be a transgender woman. As we enter the third millenium, people in my position are treated as second class citizens in many areas of life.
Yet, I feel that I can contribute to society and in fact do. I hold down a job working for a famous bookmakers, whilst studying fulltime on an LLB law course. I pay taxes and in the future hope to use my law degree in a positive manner. Yet, the country of my birth does not permit me to marry and thus preventing me from my legal rights that ensue from that.
Of course, there has been difficult times, with members of the family disowning me, abuse from members of the public etc. Yet, I have become a happier more rounded person, since my transition. I deserve to be treated like the rest of society in which I live. To be treated as the 35 year old productive, human woman that I am.