I realise how hard it is coming out and living as your heart tells you you must live. I have never had the courage to do it. After hearing the horror stories of those that did have the courage or perhaps the naivety to tell their parents or carers, I am often glad I didn't.

I came across this letter on another site. It has many "truths" that most of us will recognise.

Nearly my first memory was of having my hair cut in a ladies salon. As I was still in a push chair, I imagine I was about three, I know that I was not yet at school. The girl cut off the halo of curls I had around my head, but I still had quite long hair. I demanded that they tie my hair with a ribbon and after I kicked up an awful fuss, they at last found one and tied it into my hair, much to my mother's discomfort. On leaving the shop, a woman passing by said that it was dreadful to put a ribbon in a boy's hair, and suddenly I felt so shamed that I pulled the ribbon from my locks and threw it on the ground.

When I went to school I played mostly with the girls. I envied them their dresses and pigtails and loved their simple games, dressing up, acting out being mothers or nurses. I hated my grey shorts and shirt, looked at my clumsy shoes and compared them with the girls' neat attractive footwear.

I felt exactly the same when I went to school.

I was sent away to a boy's boarding school to toughen me up. Although I hated it, I endeavoured to fit in and played a part, but it was hard work. Even so, I would pluck an eyebrow, steal some makeup from Woolworth's and secretly experiment with it and managed to buy some girl's vests and panties from Woolworths, which I wore under my school wear when ever we did not have sport or physical training. I was attractive to a certain type of boy and although they became quite pests, I rejected them. It was not what I wanted. I knew by the age of twelve that I wanted to be a girl. I also managed to get some more grown up undies, a bra, a petticoat and a nightie, as well as a couple of pairs of lace trimmed panties, which I kept in a biscuit tin in a special hiding place.

My hiding place was under the hessian bottom of my bed.

I was thirteen when mother found these items and challenged me about it. I broke down in tears and told her how I felt, of my earliest memories and how I hated being a boy. It was also at this time that there was the case in the papers of Roberta, who had been a world war II fighter pilot, but had now become a woman. To my surprise, mother was not cross, indeed she seemed sympathetic. I was taken to a child psychiatrist who's verdict was that I would if left alone, grow out of this affliction as puberty took control. Mother was skeptical.

Mother turned a blind eye to my experiments with her make-up and clothes. I did not dress up in front of the family, but often wore girls' undies underneath. Eventually mother found out and from that time on helped me buy girls' clothes. It was squirm making to go into a shop and select clothes and purchase them with the assistants knowing that I was a boy. Mother too felt the shame, and was bad tempered, not enjoying having a sissy son.

I eventually finished school and joined a bank in the city of London. I wore my underwear under my city suit. I was popular with the girls and the chaps I worked with, even playing rugger for the banks team. At the same time, my real feelings were tearing at me. Eventually, I was sent to Sierra Leone to work and did two tours of duty there, a total of 5 years with a six month leave in between. I enlarged my female wardrobe through mail order and spent my lonely evenings dress making, stitching whole outfits by hand in tiny stitches, working out the patterns and cuts in my head, with a deal of success.

I saw another GP, told him of my problems and he arranged a consultation with another psychiatrist. This man told me that marriage would make a man of me and that I could accommodate my cross dressing tendencies by taking up amateur dramatics. He said there would never be any prospect of my becoming a woman, so to buck up and get on with my life. I left him severely depressed, considered suicide, thought about driving my car under a truck or into a brick wall. I sat by the cold grey sea, listened to the crashing waves and rocked on the seat as passers by stared. The cold eventually seeped into my consciousness and I got back in the car. I knew not which way to go. The future as a man was vile, being female, impossible. I determined to try to put the love of all things female away and do as the psychiatrist had instructed.

We all know how that works out don't we.

I met a girl at a horse riding school. She had a certain cheeky charm and her boss engineered a date for us. I liked her company and she seemed to like mine. Eventually, we became engaged and married a year later. Although I loved her, sex was extremely difficult for me, and I received precious little encouragement from her, but our infrequent love making resulted in two children.

Although life is not perfect, perfection would have been rebirth as a natal female baby, I was and am still, happy, enjoying being a girl or rather, a woman.

This is such a common tale. But It just shows that however crap it seems now. It used to be so much worse.