Andrea Marshall is facing an uncertain future, trapped between two genders, now she may never be able to complete her transition to become a woman.

She tells Helen Miller what it is like to be woman trapped inside the body of a man

FROM the age of nine, Andrew knew he was different and kept himself isolated from his peers. He did not fit in and it was easier to stay home at night than go outside and play with other boys of his age. He did not know what was happening to him or why he was so different. He just was.

The difference between him and other boys dawned on him when he was 12. He was staying with his grandfather, and happened to pick up a newspaper left lying around. An article about a businessman called Keith Hull, who had had a sex-change to become Stephanie Anne Lloyd, changed Andrew's life for ever. Suddenly everything clicked into place.

"As soon as I read that article I knew. I could not put my finger on it until that moment.'' Twenty-six years on, Andrew is living life as Andrea. But it has been a long and painful journey. A journey that is far from over.

"I never went out to play on a night time, not because I knew what was happening, more because I knew I was different," she says. "I had very, very few friends, apart from one boy who I used to do woodwork and metalwork with. He was my main friend. We did everything together, but he never knew. I don't even think he knows now what has happened because he moved away from the area."

But Andrew's discovery of what it was that set him apart did not make life easier. On the contrary, it heightened his loneliness. Growing up in the steel town of Consett, he had no one to turn to. His father had been in the Navy and was quite a strict man and Andrew was the oldest of four, having two younger sisters and a brother.

"What could I say? Who could I turn to? I didn't know what to do so just put it to the back of my mind and got on with it. I have never been able to have a relationship," she says. Instead, Andrew channelled his energies into his education, trying to ignore the revelation. But even as he pursued a career in electronics, he was struggling with the idea that he should have actually been born a woman. It was a fact that would never go away, however much he hoped it would. Eventually, it became too much to bear, and he started the gradual change from Andrew to Andrea.

"A lot of my friends were a lot older than me and they were very supportive. I started to go out on a night and at weekends as Andrea," she says. "I would leave my parents' house as Andrew and get changed into Andrea's clothes at a friend's.

"Then I would go back, get changed again and go home as Andrew. I did this for a while without my parents knowing. My mother died in 1997. She knew about it by then and she was fine. She always knew there was something different.'' The gradual transformation into Andrea became full time when Andrew moved out of the family home in 1998.

'As soon as I came in from work I became Andrea and I started doing my shopping as Andrea. It was a natural high being Andrea. I had never been happier. Then I would have to go back to work on a Monday morning and the depression was overwhelming.'' It was a business trip to America that finally gave Andrew the confirmation he had been looking for all along. Instead of just believing he should have been a woman, he was finally able to prove it.

"When I got there I found out that they did genetic testing and the results would be ready in 48 hours. It cost me £600 but it was money well spent.'' The tests revealed that Andrew had an extra X chromosome, so that even though he had all the physical attributes of a man, he had the genes of a woman.

But, despite this knowledge, when Andrew returned home the depression became too much, and a neighbour contacted Andrew's GP, who put him in touch with Dr Desmond Dunleavy, from the Newcastle Gender Dysphoria Programme, and the long drawn out process of corrective surgery began.

But before any operations, Andrew faced the task he had been dreading all his life, that of telling his family.

"I told the oldest of my two sisters first when she came to visit me with her husband and two children. They took it well. A couple of months later I rang my older sister and I asked her to approach my father," she says.

"I sat by the phone and she rang me to say he was okay. I rang him straight away and he told me I would always be welcome in his home. I think I was surprised but my family have been supportive.'' Despite the support, it is with sadness that Andrea admits she feels she may have let her father down.

"He has supported me but I do find it hard that I have never given my father a grandchild. He has grandchildren but I sometimes feel as his oldest son it was something he would have wanted from me, although he has never said this.'' For the past four years Andrea has had to undergo several sessions with psychiatrists to assess whether she was doing the right thing.

"It is a hard process. You have to convince a panel of people that you are really serious. It is like going for a job interview but this time it is your personal life. If you do not convince them you have to go through the process again.'' The transformation is an exhausting process, both emotionally and physically. Andrea has been on hormone treatment for two years to help her develop breasts. Part of the course includes anti-androgen which kills the remaining male hormones in her body. She has also had surgery on her voicebox to raise her voice.

The genetic problem she suffers has also left Andrea with Klinefelter's Syndrome which has caused heart problems.

"I need surgery to replace a heart valve and the surgeons want to do it as soon as possible but I have refused," she says. "If I have heart surgery first I will never be able to have gender reassignment surgery.'' Depression plays a big part and it has been a battle to keep positive."It is hard walking down the street. It only takes one person to notice and they tell somebody else then everyone is pointing and jeering. There is a terrible stigma attached to it. We are seen as perverts. But I am not a pervert. I am a person like everyone else. I have feelings. I suffer a genetic illness and not a mental one. This is something that needs treatment," Andrea says.

"I realise it can look strange. But it takes a lot of guts for people like me to walk down a street. I know that I am never going to look perfect.'' The brave step to confront her identity has cost Andrea her job and she has struggled to find work, even though she is highly qualified and experienced. Employers are reluctant to take on someone who is neither a man, nor yet a woman. "I get through to the interview stage and as soon as you go through the relevant checks that's it," she says.

The final hurdle comes in May or June when Andrea is due to undergo gender reassignment surgery. It is a process that will see part of her penis removed and turned inside out to form a vagina. But now, with the future of the Gender Dysphoria programme under threat, she faces the prospect of never being able to complete hertransformation.

She has been supported throughout the treatment by 53-year-old Paula Ryder, who re-launched Cross+Roads GID as a support group. Andrea has now become Paula's assistant and together, through the support group, they hope to help others through the emotional turmoil that comes with this genetic illness.

Anyone who is suffering from a transgender condition can contact Cross+Roads on 07790 642770. Or email: paula@crossroads-gid-support.org.uk; or andrea@crossroads-gid-support.org.uk.