There seems nothing in human behaviour, so incomprehensible as sex change. Most born as male or female are happy to be so, but a small number of males and females feel unhappy in their natal sex and want to change.Statistics of such a rare syndrome are bound to be inaccurate, but it seems that three or four males to every one female want to change sex. The statistic for men ranges from one in 7,400 to 30,000.This is not a life style choice. It is a deep seated malignancy of the psyche, which makes every minute lived in what they consider to be the wrong sex, a life of supreme disappointment and longing.There is no cure. In the 1960s, aversion therapy, group therapy and other more violent therapies were tried. For those afflicted who are denied therapy to change, the result is often suicide.This is my story. I am supremely happy as a female but lived a life of misery as a male. Every day spent as a male seemed to be a lie. I tried my best to be what I was supposed to be, but eventually I could continue no longer. By luck this coincided with a change in medical attitudes, otherwise I believe I would not have survived.
About the Author: I was born in 1939. By 1942 I new I was unhappy. I did not know what a girl was except that I wanted to be one. I already hated my penis. By age twelve I felt completely out of my depth in a boys' boarding school, harbouring this awful secret. Then came the revelation of Roberta Cowell changing her sex. I spoke about it to mother, but was to afraid to say that was what I wanted. At age eighteen after school, I actively tried to become a woman, but medical attitudes then did not support such action. I went to Africa, Sierra Leone, the white man's grave, where I was a bank manager at age 21. In that male atmosphere, I struggled to conform. I was ill physically but managed to perform my tasks. After five years I returned to the UK and tried to make a go of life. I married a girl who was my opposite and who I found out, married me to get away from her mother. We had two children and although I loved my family life, my basic sexual unhappiness made life a struggle. Nevertheless, I worked and worked hard and successfully. I tried at first to be the man I was supposed to be and then my old instincts returned worse than ever. I made further abortive attempts to change. At last my wife's frustration and changes in medical/psychiatric attitudes coincided. I escaped my Bible thumping GP and found salvation with Dr Randal who had attempted curing transsexuals with electric shock aversion therapy. He had found that did not work and had finally decided that what could not be cured must be accommodated. I am now retired. I paint, I write and ski and walk. I ride a motorbike occasionally and I quite like danger. I keep taking the drugs that help make me female. There are regrets, of course but I am lucky to be still here, mainly due to being blest with an inner strength.