ÌýJAQUI: Dreadful, absolutely dreadful.Ìý People say: do you feel like a woman? But I don't know what a woman feels like.Ìý You know I just felt like me and there was something wrong about me and the way I was presenting myself in the past and it just wasn't right.Ìý When I was a child I often dreamed I was a girl.Ìý It just didn't seem right to be a boy at that stage but I suppressed my feelings for quite sometime and I suppose I lived in denial for quite a few years.Ìý I even had an aran jumper, grew a beard.Ìý In the sixties it was the in thing, I tried to look studious.Ìý I tried to suppress the way I was feeling, I just felt like a pressure cooker that was building up pressure all the time, throughout my life, 27 years of marriage.Ìý At the end of that I just felt like the valve was blowing.Ìý I just needed something else in my life, something that was missing for so many years.Ìý So when I was made redundant I just needed to do something about that, so I went to the doctor and said: look what are these feelings? LESLEY: You knew there was something missing, but how did you know it was to do with not feeling you were a man, that perhaps you 'd got feelings that were more like being a woman.Ìý How did you know that? JAQUI: I just didn't like being and doing what a man does, it just didn't feel right.Ìý I felt more comfortable in feminine company.Ìý I just wanted to be in the same situation as most women, it just felt that that was the right way to go.Ìý That to be a woman was what I should have been really.Ìý It just seemed I had been heading in the wrong direction all my life.Ìý To say, what did I feel is very tricky really, because feeling's a very personal thing, isn't it? I don't think one person feels the same as the next.Ìý I probably don't feel like a woman would feel and I definitely don't feel like a man should feel.Ìý I don't know, I'm just me.Ìý I just needed to, I don't know, cross over to a feminine side if you like, and it just felt right and far more comfortable than ever I was as a man. LESLEY: So when you were a young man you say you almost didn't look at this side of yourself did you, you ignored it, did the opposite, grew your beard, aran jumper and you did get married.Ìý Was that still trying to deny what you felt? JAQUI: I think so, yes, because there was something missing, something totally missing, although I tried to think, well okay I'm a bloke, let's do what a bloke does.Ìý I fell in love - which I did, definitely, and I can say quite honestly that I still love that woman.Ìý Everything seemed to be quite mechanical, those were the days when you had an engagement and then three years later you got married and two years after that you had your first child, the reception was paid by my mother-in-law.... Although I was doing things mechanically there was something totally wrong with it and I couldn't express those feelings at all.Ìý There was no way, because I felt daft, stupid, ridiculous - how could I tell anyone if I was to be a woman, or anything like that, or even try putting womens clothing on, which seems a bit....whoa...!Ìý LESLEY: Did you do that? JAQUI: Yes, I did - in secret. LESLEY: When did you first do that? JAQUI: I first did it as a child, as a very small child.Ìý You will get this from most people who are transgendered in any way.Ìý You have a fascination for anything female, anything feminine.Ìý Even my own Mother said that even as a baby IÌý liked to be snuggled up to a piece of silk or anything like that that I had, it was something a bit more feminine, not rough and ready like anything male, if you like. LESLEY: I spoke to Kirsty about this as well and Kirsty likes to dress in women's clothes but still is married and I know you wish you could do that, in a way, don't you? JAQUI: Oh absolutely, yeah. LESLEY: Kirsty sort of denied that side of things as a child she liked to dress up and went back to it when she was older.Ìý Is that something that happened to you as well? JAQUI: I couldn't stop, really.Ìý I tried to deny the fact that I needed something through marriage, but it wouldn't stop, nothing would go away.Ìý It was something I couldn't tell anyone about, I felt so stupid about it.Ìý And if I told anyone they'd think I was out of my mind, needed brain testing or something... LESLEY: Were you almost ashamed of it yourself? JAQUI: Absolutely, absolutely ashamed.Ìý I wasn't a very sociable person at all, because anything sociable was to do with either pubs, football or anything and it just didn't suit me at all.Ìý I just didn't like that at all, anything to do with going out, like going out with the lads - I did it a few times, but I hated it, really hated it, it just wasn't right.Ìý I just wished I could go out with a group of girls or something, that would feel a lot better, but I just couldn't do it.Ìý It wasn't the done thing was it? LESLEY: So you had all these feelings you couldn't talk about, so did you ever think you were gay, which you obviously weren't because you were in love with your wife? JAQUI: No, I never felt that I was gay, as a teenager I wouldn't even have known what that was, until later in life when I realised I had a gay boss.Ìý The thought of being with another man was absolutely wrong to me and it still would be.Ìý At the moment, I've been a woman now for a couple of years, and I would still prefer female company to male. LESLEY: To all intents and purposes you were outwardly a very successful man really.Ìý You'd got a family, grown up children, wore your suit, went to work and yet you had to give all that up? JAQUI: I really did, yeah and I felt it was necessary.Ìý I just couldn't cope. | 
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