I'm not tall or built like a bloke and the hormones stopped me getting a beard. I don't need to wear any make-up to look like a woman. But she dreads waiting until she is 21 to get the surgery she needs to remove her male genitals on the NHS and hopes she will be able to borrow the money to have the operation done privately, earlier. London psychiatrist, Dr. Domenico Di Ceglie, who runs the only multidisciplinary unit in the country for adolescents with gender identity problems, sympathises with the predicament of teenagers like Jeff and Lisa but explains the need for prolonged therapy before embarking on physical treatment. We need to take account of the individual, the family and the wider social context in which the child is developing.
Age is only one factor, psychological maturity is another.
He refers to studies which show that the vast majority of children who dress or play inappropriately for their sex when young become homosexual rather than transsexual when older. It is very difficult to predict the outcome from early childhood, and it only becomes easier when children get to 14 or 15. A landmark case in the European Court of Justice in 1995 means that it is now illegal for employers to discriminate against people who are planning to change or have changed their gender. But pressure groups are continuing to campaign for British transsexuals to join those in most other European countries in being able to have their birth certificate changed after surgery to reflect their new status. For Jeff and Lisa, getting hormone treatment is only the first of many battles they will have to fight.