Meeting a British Support Group Changed My Life

Are you somehow part of the transgender community? Are you or have you been part of a support group? It could be a Tri-Ess, Renaissance, or Beaumont Society chapter or perhaps one of the independent support groups that exist in many cities around the world.

My town is so small that if we had a support group the meetings could be held in a phone booth. However the major cities around me all have thriving, active groups. Ottawa’s Gender Mosaic just passed its 20th year. In Toronto the group is called Xpressions.

In fact the IFGE site has links to over 250 support organizations without including most of the ones I’ve listed above.

A support group can be a major influence on a crossdresser’s life. For some the support group becomes part of one’s life and identity. For some the group can literally be the barrier between life and death. While some among us feel that support groups and their leadership can be a stifling influence to those I say these groups by definition are there to provide support to those in need. If you don’t need their support go elsewhere.

This story is about my first brief association with a support group and how it so greatly influenced the rest of my life. It was my good fortune to find one of the world’s most active support groups.

It was in the early 1980’s on a visit to London, England that I learned of a store called Cover Girl. I found Cover Girl on High Street, Islington. To that point in my life I could be described more accurately as a transvestite, one who put on a few articles of feminine clothing to gain sexual arousal and climax. In one day at Cover Girl and that evening my perspective and my life changed forever.

Yvonne cuts the cake.

I spent several hours and many British pounds in Cover Girl. The clerk, an older lady, welcomed me to browse through the literature. I discovered an American newspaper called Transvestian. I found and skimmed through books by Virginia Prince. I discovered the term cross-dressing. I learned about beard cover and other make up basics. The more I read the more I determined to try ‘cross-dressing’ for myself.

I purchased undergarments, padding, a wig, make-up and clothing. I instantly rediscovered the erotic joys of transvestism. From that moment I decided cross-dresser was a term that better applied to me. I’ve used it ever since. I’ve lived it ever since.

At some point during my visit to Cover Girl another customer came in. Innocently I asked him about the cross-dresser social activities I’d just read about in the British magazines. The clerk scolded us not to be making dates in the store so we went out to the street. The gentleman told me about a help group called London TV/TS Friends who were to be meeting that evening just down the street at the Islington Community Centre.

“Would I be welcome,” I asked.

“Most assuredly,” he replied.

Armed with the information and my new purchases I made my way by underground back to my hotel in the Knightsbridge area of London.

After many years of closeted activity, my dressing interest awakened with a surprising fervour. Putting on my new wardrobe was the most beautiful feeling in the world. As one might imagine it was a challenge to get dressed while containing an erection. I’m pretty sure that my first efforts at make-up probably didn’t completely cover my beard however thankfully I have no photographic evidence of the occasion.

Early that evening I made my way by taxi back to Islington. The taxi stretched my budget but on my first evening out I was not yet ready to brave the crowded underground system.

The London TV/TS group meeting was a real eye opener. That evening there were about twenty real live people like me. Most were or had been married. They lived solid lives in business or in some other normal ‘respectable’ profession. In fact they were normal but for the one desire to present themselves as a woman. Some were very good at it; some not. At that point I was probably a little below the middle of the range.

The group was lead by an incredible character, full or energy, named Yvonne Sinclair. Yvonne would not let anyone be a ‘wallflower’. She made sure I was introduced to everyone. She talked up other events such as the annual group netball game with the Islington police detachment. Netball is basketball without dribbling and backboards. It is played exclusively by women or in this case by men wanting to be women.

Unlike many support groups there did not seem to be a business part of the London TV/TS Friends evening. It was just ‘girls being girls’, chatting, sharing stories, getting to know each other and enjoy the freedom of being who they wanted to be.

I remember one girl telling a group of us of her ‘male employment’ selling tickets at one particular British Rail station and how, even as a girl, she used her pass to take the train at that same station every time she came to a group meeting.

“Aren’t you worried about being discovered and losing your job?” one of us asked.
“No, they don’t care and besides we have a strong union.”

Another told us of her experience shopping for women’s clothes at a store called Marks & Spencer. At the time that seemed so bold. For me now that is so routine.

By 11 p.m. the Friends group was winding down. Some had to make their way home to their wives but a few were going to stretch out the evening. I was invited along. Their next stop was to be the (now closed) Philbeach Hotel in the Earl’s Court area of London. I do not remember who it was that gave me a ride but she drove a Jaguar very fast. She also talked about how she kept a large amount of clothing and accessories in a storage locker near her work. She actually did her transformations in the locker.

That evening lasted until I was exhausted at 3 AM.  My new friends were somewhat amazed that I had started the day as a man in Paris and was ending it as a woman in a London hotel. They were not nearly as amazed as I was. I was very glad of the ride back to my hotel.

The next day was Saturday. After a sleep that stretched nearly until noon I grabbed a much needed meal, another nap and then repeated the previous night’s trip to the TV/TS Friends group. Except for Yvonne Sinclair there was virtually a completely different group of girls present. They were just as interesting and many were just as keen to go to the Philbeach. That worked for me.

In the next few years I returned several times to London. I managed to stay at the Philbeach and sometimes my visit would coincide with a London TV/TS Friends meeting. For a while, under the dynamic leadership of Yvonne Sinclair, the group managed to acquire their own building, complete with a lounge, changing rooms and lockers they rented out to members. It was a very comfortable place to visit and to make new friends.

When I couldn’t be in London I stayed in touch with the group by subscribing to their magazine, The Glad Rag. The magazine was always a welcome find in my postal box. From across the Atlantic Yvonne and her group were ‘friends’ helping me be comfortable with public expressions of my feminine identity.

Regrettably, some time in the 1990s I stopped going to London. About the same time London TV/TS Friends passed from existence.

While London TV/TS Friends is no more its memory lives on through the Internet history collected and posted by the unsinkable Yvonne Sinclair. A more complete history of the London TV/TS Friends is on line here.

Yvonne’s delightful personal recollections are also online.  They are well worth reading.

Category: Transgender Body & Soul