Teenage years were somewhat confusing, I guess they are for most of us. It’s just that I never really wanted to be the same as other boys. OK, I enjoyed a game of cricket and the odd drink but the womanising and acting the hard man bit just seemed alien for some unknown reason. It was just far easier acting as the bookish swat who didn’t do that sort of thing. OK, there were those who probably thought I was a sad tosser but hey, that’s the way I felt about them. I just didn’t feel the urge to shout it out. And to be honest if I had told my mates what I was really thinking about they wouldn’t have understood.In anycase I wanted to be like them. I never asked to feel the way I did.

University was another long period of denial, much of which has disappeared into a drunken haze (you used to get grants in those days!!!), and then it was out into the big wide world to get a job and fulfill my role in our patriarchal society. This is where the problems really started. I have always been a bit on the lethargical side, but my inability to hold down a regular job for the next six years cannot really be put down to laziness. It was the fact that I had to fulfill a male role in what was almost always a male orientated society. The stuffy suits, the inane conversations, the loss of individuality in order to become part of the companies global objective. The more I became to hate this situation, the more I sought solace in crossdressing. I tried a number of options to see me through my twenties, which mostly revolved around alcohol. I travelled around the world and had some pretty weird and wacky jobs but at the end of the day nothing could ever make the “man” in me happy.

I had first gone out dressed in public at the end of 1995. I remember standing by the front door for what seemed like an age absolutely bricking myself. That brown skirt was very useful. Well up until that night anyway!!! Looking back, I must have looked a right state. Typical transvestite in short skirt, stockings, heels etc. I just cringe when I look back on those days. The fact was that I didn’t really want to dress like that at the time but being so closet, I would only buy from tranny shops and the choice is somewhat limited.

There was really no looking back after this. No more clothes purges (there had been three to this point) and more importantly a growing confidence that by the end of 1998 had seen me out clubbing all over the country, running private parties in Brighton and then running a nightclub for transgendered people as well. This really was the start of the problem as it got to the stage where I was more comfortable as me rather than having to face the world as him! By October 1998 I was working 5 days a week as him and then 5 nights a week as a woman. Something had to give.

In January 1999 I was diagnosed as transexual by Dr Russel Reid in London. In hindsight, this was the right thing for me to do but perhaps a few months too soon. During the first third of 1999 I had a fairly intense relationship with a lovely girl that in the short term was great fun, but in the long term affirmed my inner most thoughts regarding my gender and sexuality and quite frankly would never have gone anywhere.. And whereas I had come off the hormones by February 1999 due to this, I was back on them by September and have remained on them ever since. Ok, I still have days when I wake up and wonder what the hell am I doing, but on the whole I am now happy in myself.

CONTINUED