Marie Claire magazine, UK edition, July edition 2002
Marie Claire real lives
Imagine living your life feeling trapped in a man's body, unable to dress, behave or be treated as the person you feel you are. Chris Morris hears the inspirational stories of three male-to-female transsexuals. Original photographs by Tim O'Sullivan
'Coming out was very frightening'
Denise, 22, is a website designer. She realised she was transsexual at nineteen, and is
now living as a woman while waiting for sex-change surgery.
'Before I knew I was transsexual, I went through years of pain. I thought I must be gay, bisexual or
a transvestite, and often felt suicidal. It's only now that I'm living as a woman that I finally feel
comfortable with myself.
'I expect to have my sex-change operation in August. By then, I'll have completed my "real-life"
test by living as a female for a year. I was diagnosed as transsexual last August and I've been
Denise ever since. I've always known I'm different - I used to buy clothes from Top Shop and try
them on in secret - so although it's scary, it's a relief, too. The day I was prescribed female
hormones, I literally ran to the chemist so I could start taking them.
'The real-life test is the hardest bit for any transsexual because it involves coming out, which is
very frightening. My dad doesn't talk about it much, but I know he wants me to be happy. My older
brother says he's proud of me and my colleagues have been great. I told them by e-mail and got
messages back saying: "Good luck" and "You're so brave".
'Men do behave differently to me now. They open doors and I've even had wolf whistles, but that's
just funny. My sexuality is lesbian.
'I know now that a genital defect I was born with has contributed to my transsexualism. One of my
testicles didn't descend properly because of hormone imbalances in my mum's womb, which is
often the case with transsexuals. Although I'm taking out a loan for the operation, it's worth it as
I'm 90 per cent comfortable with the way I am now and the operation will just complete the change.
'When people stare at me, I still get worried that they've guessed and will say something. It hasn't
happened yet, though. After coming this far, the most important lesson I've learned is to do
whatever makes me feel comfortable. Otherwise, I don't know where I'd be.'
'I'll have my sperm frozen'
Jamie Cooper, sixteen, is about to do a beauty therapy course. She is on hormone treatment and
hopes to have sex-change surgery when she's 21.
'I became Jamie - the female Jamie - on my sixteenth birthday. I kept my male name because it
sounds feminine, too. The night before, I had my hair braided, a manicure and leg wax, and went
to bed in a nightie. The next day, I put on a gel-filled bra, skirt, top and platform shoes. Looking in
the mirror was such a thrill.
'When I was twelve, I wrote my mum a letter, saying I should have been born a girl. She was in
tears when she read it and said I was confused. We talked it over for days before getting
professional advice. A gender specialist told me it could just be puberty. However, if it was
something deeper, I'd have to wait until I was sixteen to start changing sex legally, and eighteen till
I could have the op. But over the next four years, my feelings just got stronger.
'When I turned sixteen, I started having injections to suppress my testosterone. That helped, but I
had terrible mood swings.
'Since I've started dressing as a girl, I get a lot of male attention. I'm a straight female inside and I
fancy men, but I know I can't see anybody right now in case it gets physical, so I just flirt. The
other day, this man offered to carry my shopping and started chatting me up. He'd actually known
me as male Jamie, but didn't realise.
'My mum does wonder if I've made the decision too early. She'd like grandchildren, so I plan to
have sperm frozen before the op that can be used to fertilise the egg of a surrogate mum.
'My grandparents say I'll always be their grandson, which upsets me. I hate being reminded I was
a boy. Every time I have a bath I'm reminded and get depressed.
'It's not easy living like this. I used to get angry that other teenagers had "normal" lives, but the
feeling isn't half as bad now that I know who I am.'
'When I hit puberty, my erections repulsed me'
Zoe, 21, works for an Internet company. She had sex-change surgery in October.
'I had the operation to change my body from a man's to a woman's eight months ago. You can get
it done on the NHS, but it takes five years[1], so I took out a bank loan for
£9,000 and went private instead.
'I was scared about going into hospital. It's a three-hour operation, which involved removing my
testicles and penile tissue, and inverting the penile skin and scrotum to make a vagina. They made
a clitoris out of tissue from part of my glans. I had been taking oestrogen for a year to slow my
facial hair, but I had to stop taking it a month before the operation. So while they were making my
vagina, I was lying there with a beard.
'The main worry with the operation is something going wrong afterwards, such as deep-vein
thrombosis, vaginal prolapse or that the clitoris might be too sensitive or numb. But I just wanted to
get it over with. For me, starting the oestrogen treatment a year before had been more important
As well as slowing down my facial hair, it gave me softer skin, small breasts and made my nipples
more sensitive.
'I've felt different for as long as I can remember. I was bullied at school for being feminine. When
puberty arrived, I was repulsed by my erections and deepening voice. At times I felt suicidal.
'It wasn't until I was nineteen that I understood what being transsexual was. I'd bought a computer
and looked it up on websites. It basically meant I was a woman trapped in a man's body - I had a
female brain. Until then, I thought it was just the weirdos you saw on The Jerry Springer;
Show. I sat there almost shouting: "That's me! That's me!" as I read people's stories.
'I told my mum a few months later. I'd been dressing up in secret and one day she caught me
wearing one of her dresses. I sat on the sofa and burst into tears. It took six months for her to
understand what it was I wanted. But she did some research and she's great now.
'I was officially diagnosed as a transsexual in August 2000 and referred to psychiatrists. As well as
starting the hormone treatment, I had to live as a woman full-time for a year to prove to them that
I'd be happy in the female role. "Zoe" is what my mum would have called me if I'd been born a girl.
'It's cost me around £15,000 to change sex. That includes the psychiatry bills, the operation and
electrolysis and laser sessions to remove the rest of my facial hair. I need up to ten sessions for it
to be permanent and I'll need speech therapy to feminise my voice. It's been worth every penny,
though. There are still a few things that get me down, like having to shave twice a week and rub
oestrogen gel on my breasts to help them grow, but I'm happy with myself now.
'I didn't have any expectations about the results of my operation, but Mum said she was
impressed. At first, my vagina was very swollen. Even now, I have to use a special instrument - a
sort of medical dildo - which I insert once a day for fifteen minutes to stop it closing up. It used to
be three times a day, first with a small one, then with a big one.
'For a while after the op, my body didn't know what sex was, even if my brain did. However, I'm
able to have sex again now, which I'm very happy about physically. I'm a bisexual female and I'm
in a relationship with another male-to-female transsexual. My sex drive is less urgent than it used
to be and I don't think about sex all the time. I can orgasm and the sensation is much the same as
when I was a man. I don't miss my penis. It's just been changed to a different shape.
'Nobody would choose to go through this. But I've never once thought about changing my mind.
It's what I've had to do to be happy.'
What is transsexualism?
- One in 10,000 men and one in 30,000 women are born transsexual.
- Unlike transvestites, who cross-dress occasionally for fun or sexual kicks, transsexuals feel
trapped in the wrong body.
- One Dutch study believes the condition is caused 'by an imbalance of the sex hormones that affect the brain's development in the womb at six to nine weeks. This research showed that one small part of a male-to-female transsexual brain is physiologically the same as that of a woman, while the brains of gay and straight men are identical.
How do you change sex?
- At least 5,000 people have had a sex-change operation in the UK in the past 30 years. The
sex-change process begins with a referral to a psychiatrist and counselling.
- Male transsexuals then start oestrogen treatment, which helps them develop breasts, smoother
skin and rounder hips. Body hair is also reduced, while facial hair is removed by electrolysis or
laser.
- Patients live as a woman for at least a year to prove that they are happy and socially stable in their
new role. They must come out at work, but are protected from discrimination by law. During this
time, documents such as driving licence and passport are changed to 'female'. Proposals are
under way to change birth certificates.
- More counselling follows before the three-to four-hour operation on patients over eighteen.
- Dr Russell Reid, consultant psychiatrist at London's Hillingdon Hospital, says about 75 per cent of male-to-female transsexuals, striving to live as 'normal' women, have heterosexual male partners.