"This is one person’s journey of reassignment. It spares no blushes while taking the reader through highs and lows in a narrative that tells it from the heart. It will make you smile, it may make you cry but in the end, you will be left with an insight into the life of someone who is willing to share her experience as she became Kirsty Jayne Crow."
In 2017, I interviewed Kirsty and this is what she told me about the book: "It was something that I had been toying with for a number of years. People used to ask me why I had followed the path I had and I felt that if I could explain the situation frankly and honestly, it might just lead to a greater understanding of girls like us.
I was finally galvanized into action when I took part in “Your Call”; a phone-in on BBC Five Live hosted by Nicky Campbell.
That day the program was examining the decision of Frank Maloney to henceforth live as Kellie. It was a subject on which I felt qualified to speak and I found myself afforded generous airtime. When later I listened back to the interview I considered that there was so much more I could have said and thus I took up my pen.
In the event, it turned out to be a cathartic experience as it was only when I had completed the memoir that I truly understood everything myself. My third wife Julia, on reading the manuscript commented that the question that people should really have been asking was “Why wouldn’t I have transitioned?”
Obviously everyone follows a unique path, but there are certainly many problems that we all share. When I first became a regular member of the Manchester scene I used to hear countless myths about various aspects of the transition process. I was warned that electrolysis was unbearable and that the pain experienced during SRS was more than the average person could endure.
There were all kinds of conflicting advice about how best to approach a Gender Specialist, obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate, or, most challenging of all; pass seamlessly in public. Sorting the wheat from the chaff became almost as mind-boggling as the process itself. In candidly setting out my own experiences I hope that I have laid most of these fallacies to rest and have provided a step-by-step guide to how most of these obstacles can be overcome."
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