A transsexual's story
Lynda Sheridan was born a boy but always played with girls. She was six before she realised she was physically different from her playmates.
She suffered from a medical condition known as gender dysphoria, where her physical appearance and her gender identity were different. "I always described myself as a woman with a physical condition rather than as a man with a mental problem," she said.
"The condition is critical if not treated. There are very high levels of suicide both before treatment and after, if there is no follow-up both for the person and their family."
Lynda said she was happy to be involved in the launch of the Equality Authority's report, Access to Health Services for Transsexual People. It had been a nightmare for her after she discovered she was basically different from the girls she played with. "At puberty it got worse."
But she was lucky in one respect. One girl, who had been her close friend throughout her childhood, understood. They hung around together as girls.
Eventually they decided they would like to have children, and they married. They had two daughters, though Lynda continued to live much of her life as a woman. "We were ahead of our time. She was a very intelligent, very loving person," she said of her wife, Carmel, who died six years ago.
"My life collapsed," said Lynda. "If it was not for my two daughters, I would not have survived."
She then had gender realignment treatment, including the surgery that has made her biologically a woman. She remains close to her daughters and to the six grandchildren she now has.
"I told my daughters I never expected them to call me mother, as long as they respected me as a woman. They do. When I was a man, I was the best dad in the world, probably because I was a woman.
"I'm so lucky. So many don't ever meet a soul mate. Yet I always felt I was living a lie, and I didn't like that. I loved Carmel, I loved my girls, I loved my life, but I never felt fulfilled as an individual. When I had the surgery, for the first time in my life I felt honest."
Carol Coulter