Like most transsexual people of her generation she struggled, increasingly unsuccessfully, to deal with the condition by denial and suppression. Eventually, the years of guilt and shame and pain proved too much and, faced with chronic depression and suicide, she finally acknowledged “her true self”. Paula “transitioned” to living and working as a woman full-time nine months after counselling, hormone therapy, electrolysis to then have gender reassignment surgery and a legal name change. She transitioned among her neighbours and local community, amongst her friends and workmates.