Your stories

Carol grew up in Wath Upon Dearne in the 50’s and always knew something was different.

As always Rony starts this interview by asking Carol what she would be doing at this time of day…

“I would be finishing off a piece of work for a conference. I’m involved with health and equalities. I have a degree in health and human science so I do a lot of research and I lecture too."

Why do you do what you do?

Rony asks why she chose a career in health and human sciences'?

Carol Robson at work

“I’ve got an interest through my degree and my life and wanted to give something back, such as transgender awareness."

“I’m a transsexual which means I was born male with male genitalia. All my life I remember my mind being female. From a very young age I actually thought I was different but for many years I never knew what it was.

“Now through my work I’m finding people are doing it younger and both men and women.”

Regrets

Is it something Carol wishes she had done earlier on in life?

“I was once asked that question, ‘With what you know now do you wish you were born 30 years later?’ A little bit of me thinks yes but no I don’t.

“I wouldn’t have had two wonderful and supportive daughters. I have a lovely ex-partner who is very much a big part of my life even though we are divorced."

What are you?

All kinds of terms are thrown around from a transvestite to homosexual, what are you?

“People refer to people like me as a transsexual but I dislike the word. It’s OK for the medical and scientific schools to use that term. I don’t identify with that. My birth certificate says that I’m female. I am now allowed to have that. I applied for a gender recognition certificate and you have to reach certain criteria, which I did.”

Carol the night before her operation

Describe yourself, what do you look like now?

“I look fantastic, I feel happy. I did a TV programme a couple of years ago and I was interviewed the night before my gender reassignment. I was asked how I felt ‘Actually the surgery doesn’t make me a woman, I am a woman it just completes me.’

“A lot of people say, ‘if you hadn’t have told me that you were once a man, I wouldn’t have known.’ I tell people about me, I don’t hide it. If I’m making friendships or potential partners, I tell them.”

Life before Carol

“On the whole I had a good childhood, I hid about the way I felt.

“I was born with a cleft pallet which wasn’t corrected until I was about 2 years old. I don’t remember the operation but I remember all the correction appointments I had, as I had a lot of problems with my jaw and teeth.

“I was a small child too which didn’t help. I had a strong stutter until I was about 10 years old.

“I always felt more comfortable around female relatives. I tried to be boyish but I could never do it. I used to walk in my mums shoes if she went out. I wanted to play mums and dads and I wanted to play mum.

Carol Robson as a child

“When I realised the body differences between boys and girls I was horrified. I was about seven years old when I wanted things to change. I was afraid to talk to people. Girls could get away with being tom boys but not the other way around, this was the 50’s industrial South Yorkshire.

“Would you believe I chose my name ‘Carol’ when I was 8 years old.”

Changes

What moment did you think about changing your sexual organs?

“I had a few relationships when I was younger. I got married when I was 28. I thought if this is what I’ve got to do then this is what I’ll do. I fell in love. I wanted to be with somebody. It was later on when I tried to talk to Gillian my wife about my feelings but I was always afraid. I thought I’d be labelled a freak if somebody found out about me.

“April Ashley was in the papers a lot at the time, this is someone who openly admitted their transgender change. I read that story in the paper and I realised I wasn’t the only person. It was a horrific story and she was hounded for who she was.

“12 years later and I couldn’t go on anymore. I had suicidal thoughts.

“I had to tell Gillian, my wife. The conversation was awful, we were already drifting apart from each other because of how I felt and she knew something was wrong.

“I told her how I felt all my life. She was cross, for the first few months it felt like bereavement for her.

“Telling my daughters about my feelings as a transgender is one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. The eldest said ‘I’m going to wake up in a moment, this is a nightmare’ I told her about my suppressed feelings. I wanted them to be part of life and I told them about what was going to happen. I gave them leaflets and tried and explain.

“My youngest daughter cried, ran out and told her best friend but that was her way of coping with it. I stayed there for a few weeks and then moved out.

“I’m in touch with them and always have been, I did feel guilty.”

The real life experience

So what happened from there? How did you become Carol?

“I had to change GP’s, I saw the community mental health team which the diagnosis is still under a mental health diagnosis.

“There is a gender identity clinic in Sheffield at the Porter Brook, Michael Carlisle Centre. Under the NHS it would’ve taken several years for the operation to happen. I decided to phone the clinic and find out how long it would take if it went private and I was given an appointment within a month. I was on hormone treatment by the end of 2001.

Carol in surgery which was filmed for TV

“I was told I had one of the lowest testosterone even before I started treatment. I always had small hands and feet, I’m 5’6 and never developed an adams apple.

I had my surgery 1st February 2005. From going into the clinics, being assessed, psychotherapists, hormone treatment, a few months before my surgery I was actually lactating, I was one of the few. It reassured me that it was true, I just cried.”

Happy?

One of the inevitable questions that has to be asked is, are you happy?

“Very happy, people can see that when they meet me. One of my tutors at university who was a professor in health physiology. She remarked that I became happy because I stopped living the lie and was myself – Carol. My brain unlocked and I relaxed.”