Helen Thompson knew she was a girl from the age of eight... even though she was born a boy. She tells her story to EMMA DUNN

HELEN Thompson may have been born a boy, but at the age of just eight years old she already knew she was really a female.

She started trying on her mum’s and sister’s clothes from a very early age, but continued living as a boy and then a man because she thought it was what everybody wanted.

After joining the Territorial Army as a teenager, she later got married and had two daughters. That marriage came to an end after 23 years when she told her wife she wanted to be a woman.

From that day, she gradually started dressing as a woman in public and began the sex change process. In 2005, she underwent surgery and officially became a woman.

“I don’t miss the old me. It’s the best thing I ever did by a mile. My biggest regret is waiting to do it,” said Helen, now 64.

“I wanted to have the operation when I was 20 but I wasn’t strong enough as a person. I am a very strong person now but I wasn’t then.

“I went into the TA and I was wearing women’s underwear. I was only about 18 or 19 then.

“Before the sex change, like most transsexuals, there was a lot of frustration and I felt unhappy being in the wrong body.

“Once I’d had the operation it was a release. I became a much happier person.”

Helen, who lives in Swindon town centre, no longer talks to one of her daughters or the mother of her children, but has remained on good terms with her eldest.

“Most of us lose family, that’s just something that happens,” she said.

“Also, the majority of us go through trying to commit suicide, myself included,” she said.

Helen doesn’t have any photos of herself as a man, nor did she want to reveal her male name.

“Most of us know by the age of eight. I was calling myself Helen by then,” she said.

“I knew who I was but I tried to hide it. I tried to be what everybody wanted me to be.

“I was dressing in my sister’s and mother’s clothing when I was young. When I put those clothes on I felt right, I felt like me,” said Helen, who grew up in Stratton.

Helen continued wearing women’s clothing in private while she was married, something her wife of 23 years knew about.

“I got married because I thought I should. I’m actually asexual, I have no sexual feelings or thoughts at all,” she said. “I didn’t tell her straight away. But I used to go out and buy women’s clothes.

“You try to be what everybody wants you to be, but then you have to make a decision. Do you feel unhappy as a person as you are? Do you go the whole hog and have gender reassignment surgery?

“My marriage came to an end when I made the decision that I wanted to be a woman. It’s a life changing thing and, unfortunately, it hurts people. I really hurt people.

“Obviously I didn’t want to hurt her but for my own sanity I had to make that decision for me. It’s something we [transsexuals] all do. We all lose family somewhere.”

After Helen’s first marriage broke down, she married another woman. That wife knew he wanted to be a woman, but the relationship only lasted seven years.

“It was a very open relationship and we left on good terms. But that was my biggest mistake. I shouldn’t have got married again,” she said.

“It was a good thing in a lot of ways because we were there for each other. She was a soul mate. We liked the same music and clothes and we had a very good friendship. We still talk now.

“But it was a bad thing in a lot of ways, because I lost seven years of being me.”

Helen first saw a doctor about becoming a woman when her first marriage ended. She then started going through the system. When it was time for her operation, Helen’s second marriage ended.

The process to become a woman involves psychiatric and medical tests, and those considering it must spend a period of time living as a woman.

Helen slowly started dressing as a woman at work while she was working night shifts at the WH Smith warehouse.

“I went to the warehouse manager to tell them I was going to become a woman. I thought I was going to get the sack but I didn’t. Smiths were brilliant.

“I gradually started wearing earrings and then nail varnish, and just kept adding different things,” she said.

The operation to become a woman, which Helen had nine years ago, lasted eight hours and took three months to recover from.

Helen has to take daily hormone tablets, which she will be on for the rest of her life.

“There’s not enough understanding about transsexuals,” she said. “I want to help educate people and help them understand that we are normal.”

Helen is chairwoman of the Wiltshire Law Centre and also works with the CPS on the hate crime panel. She was formerly chairwoman of Voluntary Action Swindon and chairwoman of the transgender part of Equality South West in Taunton.

Since having the surgery, she has never looked back.

“I am happy as me. If somebody says things that are mean it doesn’t make a difference to me,” she said.

“I have got my birth certificate saying I am a female and that is all I have ever wanted in my life.”