Transgender people converged on Manchester from all over the country and abroad for the annual Sparkle Festival.
Now in its sixth year and based around Canal Street, the Mechanics Institute and The Place Apartment Hotel, the festival featured a Sparkle Ball, Tranny of the Year competition, fashion shows, music and trade stands, while on a more serious side, talks and workshops, a guided walk and even a church service.
Organiser Bella Jay said: “Sparkle is the world’s flagship transgender celebration and we should be proud that we are leading the way in promoting acceptance and understanding of our community.
“Society does still have a way to go in accepting us, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be proud of who we are and celebrate the transgender that makes us all the special girls we truly are.”
However, there are still serious emotional as well as physical issues to face for people who choose to have a sex change or who want to just live like and look like members of the opposite sex.
Crowning glory: At the Tranny Of The Year event
One such person is Michelle, from Burnage, Manchester, who changed her name from Michael after her operation. She is helping out on the trade stand for gym chain Total Fitness, where she received treatment for hair removal at the laser clinic in Wilmslow.
She wrestled for years with her gender issues, not least because she was also a practising Catholic – even now she doesn’t want to reveal her surname in case it upsets some people – and one of the most distressing things for her when she decided to become a woman was the sight of manly hair.
Looking at her today, with a smooth face and dressed as elegantly as any 62-year-old woman (although she looks much younger), Michelle says: “I first went to the doctors in 2003 about changing my gender and I started having hormone treatment the following year, along with electrolysis, which is essential in the early stages to get rid of the really tough hairs.
“I wanted to get rid of all my male features – the hair in particular was affecting me psychologically. I was very upset with having to shave and suffer the problems associated with all the hair growth.
“Hormone treatment is very effective in the first 12 months, but then it plateaus off. I was having electrolysis at the same time. But it’s very time consuming and painstaking because it’s one hair at a time. Laser treatment, though, covers a far greater area, probably 100 times more than electrolysis.”
So about every six weeks for three years, Michelle underwent laser treatment, and the results are incredible. She seems more than content in her new silky skin – she’s currently training in adult nursing care in a hospital and in September she’s starting a diploma in the subject at Salford University.
She’s come a long way from the days when she was totally confused about who she was.
“I always thought of myself as female since the age of eight, but when I was younger it wasn’t possible to do anything about it. Times were very different. But even if I had known about what to do I couldn’t have put Mum and Dad through that, to suffer the ignominy. It wasn’t practical.
“But in later life, once my parents had died, I felt I had to do it. I wasn’t happy in myself, wasn’t happy in a masculine role in life.”
Before her sex-change, as Michael, she worked in administrative jobs, including one at Ferranti engineering, and then studied horticulture for three years, but because of her age couldn’t find a suitable job.
“Then soon after that Mum took ill, so I started looking after her and my dad,” says Michelle. “I did a French A’ Level and when Mum died I became a full-time carer for seven years for my dad, who died in 2003.
“Then I put my personal changes into motion to see if it was the right thing, and I feel certain it is.”
Prior to 2003, Michelle says that rather than being straight or gay, she was totally asexual.
“Sexually there was nothing. I’d never had a sexual relationship whatsoever. I can’t explain why. Life just didn’t deal me a nice hand,” she says.
Now Michelle says she’s comfortable with people of all genders, while previously she’d been nervous about being involved with gay people.
“Now I have more affection towards other women than men. As daft as it may sound, I’m a strict Roman Catholic, and I want to help the church modify its views a bit. Strangely, as a woman, it would be impossible for me to marry a man in my church because I was born a man. But in the eyes of God it would be perfectly all right for me to have a relationship and get married to another woman and I would be perfectly all right with that.”
Michelle, who went to St Cuthbert’s School in Burnage, now sports a smart, feminine bob hairstyle. She says that the one advantage of being more like a woman than a man was she always had lovely locks, without a hint of thinning.
“I have it cut at Fountain of Beauty in Cheadle Hulme and have it coloured about twice a year. It doesn’t suit me long because of my facial features and height (she’s 5ft 10”). Also, if it’s too light or too dark I look either washed out or old. I had it really dark once and I thought I looked about 10 years older.”
And while the hair on top is thriving, the old facial hair is nowhere to be seen.
“There’s absolutely no sign of any hair growing back. I’d recommend the laser treatment to anybody. Initially the skin is tender for 24 hours but that dissipates very quickly, a bit like sunburn.”
For more information on the Sparkle events, www.sparkle.org.uk/ .
To learn about the laser treatments available at Total Fitness in Wilmslow, visit http://www.totalfitnesslaser.co.uk/laser-hair-removal.php
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