The Rosalind Mitchell Story

["Christine Burns" <C_Burns@classic.msn.com>]

Introduction by Christine Burns
Press for Change, Sun 21st Sep 97

---------------------------

On Monday of this coming week the Guardian newspaper is expected to carry 
an 
authorised exclusive story about a Bristol City Councillor, who is "coming 
out" to party colleagues and the community this week, to announce their 
transition from the person they knew as "David Spry" into Rosalind 
Mitchell.

Rosalind will be the latest in a new generation of transsexual people in 
the 
United Kingdom, to announce and manage their change  whilst already in the 
public eye .. servants of the community who no longer drop out of public 
life 
and into obscurity, to conduct their transition in fear and shame, but who 
ask 
their community to live with them through a difficult time .. offering the 
public a chance to make public service a two way street.

This year began with two similarly high profile stories, which many of you 
will remember. First there was the story of a transgendered General 
Practitioner who began their transition with a letter to all 10,000 
members of 
their practice to have a go at helping the healer for a change. Days 
later, 
this was followed by a similar story when a Devonshire school teacher 
posed a 
similar challenge for the parents, staff and pupils of their school. Both 
stories surprised us all with the degree of support they drew .. and the 
fact 
that the press were willing to report them fairly and objectively. After a 
few 
days, in fact, they were no longer news.

And transgendered councillors are certainly not a new thing in Britain 
either 
...

Press for Change founder Mark Rees, famous for his unsuccessful European 
Court 
of Human Rights action to change his birth certificate a decade ago, has 
been 
a Liberal Democrat councillor in his home town of Tonbridge in Kent for 
some 
years, and was elected AFTER his past came to public attention. There has 
been 
at least one other Labour councillor too, who was "out" as a transsexual 
woman 
in a London borough (although she has since stood down and moved 
elsewhere). 
Less publicly, all three main parties have a significant contingent of 
transgendered activists working for them (not all "out", either) .. As in 
all 
pursuits, transgenderedness is not an issue in politics, unless that's 
your 
platform.

The interest in this story, however, is that nobody has ever transitioned 
whilst in political office. Like the GP and the science teacher, the 
challenge 
in Rosalind's life over the next few weeks and months is to carry her 
colleagues and community with her .. to acquire their understanding, trust 
and 
support .. to educate and to allay their fears .. and to (hopefully) draw 
on 
their support to make one of life's most fundamental of all adjustments.

It's a chance for the public in Bristol to put something back for the 
service 
they get from those who volunteer for the very unglamorous and hard work 
which 
constitutes the reality of local government.

Ros says that she doesn't plan her actual role transition until next 
spring .. 
although her hormonal treatment is now well under way, and colleagues will 
no 
doubt start noticing a progressive change in the way the way their 
colleague 
presents themself between now and then.

She has also started a diary of the whole journey which, is she ever 
considers 
publishing it, will doubtless make a rivetting account of what goes on 
behind 
the scenes in local politics. Her accounts to us of the preparations for 
this 
event, with her council colleagues and the Labour Party's publicity 
managers, 
have certainly had us on the edge of our seats for weeks.

To help support her at the start of this epic adventure, in a week in 
which 
her life may come under a lot of public scrutiny though, I asked Ros to 
prepare a brief about herself...

Whatever else may be written or said about her this week, THIS is Ros's 
account of her life.

So, if you're asked .. now you'll know ..

---------------------------

ROSALIND MITCHELL WRITES ...

PERSONAL HISTORY

I was born David Spry on 2 August 1954 in Barrow-in-Furness, Lancashire. 
My 
father was a shipyard draughtsman, my mother had been a typist in the 
shipyard 
but did not work during my childhood.  I have a sister five years older 
than 
myself.

The family moved twice before I started school at Greasby on the Wirral, 
and 
again moved to Hertfordshire when I was 11.  I passed my 11-plus and went 
to a 
Grammar School, but being small, unco-ordinated, poor at team sports and 
gym 
activities, having a strong Merseyside accent in Hertfordshire, and being 
generally "odd" I was given a very hard time.

I did not have girlfriends (being painfully shy especially with girls) 
until I 
had gone to Liverpool University in 1972 to study physics.  I met Kathy in 
the 
first term (she approached me) and married her in 1976.

Kathy knew about my cross-dressing and was encouraging within the home. I 
was 
faithful to her sexually until after our daughter Karen was born in 1980.  
And 
then I went wild, looking for something I could never identify.  The 
marriage 
broke up in 1981 and I moved to Cambridge for two years, where I first 
experimented with gay relationships (not very satisfactory) and with 
public 
cross-dressing.  I left Cambridge in March 1983 in the throes of a 
deepening 
personal crisis which culminated in emotional collapse and a suicide 
attempt 
in April 1983.

I met my second wife Mary, an American 12 years older than myself, in 
August 
1984, I moved in with her in London in November that year and married her 
in 
Upstate New York the following year.  Mary was aware of my cross-dressing 
and 
for a while encouraged it in private but could not altogether cope with my 
level of compulsion, which was by this time not at all sexual.  I was very 
conscious by now of wanting to find others like me, and used Mary's 
absences 
in the US to go looking.

We were, and remain to this day, very close friends, but I moved out in 
1992.  
Ten days after I moved out I attended an Open University Summer School at 
York 
University at which a tutor was murdered by a student. At the end of that 
week 
when I got home I suffered a second emotional collapse.  I was 
cross-dressing 
regularly, and through my work as a local councillor came into contact 
with 
transsexuals in Earls Court, with whom I took to socialising regularly.  
In 
October 1993 I declined to put myself up for reselection and arranged to 
move 
to Bristol.  There was no compelling reason to do this but looking back I 
believe I was getting close to acknowledging my dysphoria and was running 
away 
from it.

I have been in Bristol three and a half years now.  Until a year ago I 
more-or-less suppressed my nature by subsuming it in work and political 
activity, but it returned strongly to the point where I was able to 
acknowledge it and seek help.


POLITICAL HISTORY

I joined the Labour Party in October 1982, towards the end of the two 
years 
that I was living in Cambridge following the breakup of my first marriage. 
 In 
January 1983 I became secretary of the Kings Hedges branch but resigned 
two 
months later whenI left Cambridge.

I was active in assisting the agent in North Hertfordshire constituency in 
the 
1983 General Election and found the whole campaign such a depressing and 
disheartening experience that together with a friend I co-authored a paper 
"Towards a New Approach" as a dissident response to be circulated to the 
Constituency Labour Party (CLP) General Management Committee.  (The paper 
contained suggestions for a new approach and structure for the party not 
unlike what subsequently happened.  The CLP Chair rejected it brusquely 
but a 
copy sent to David Hughes at Walworth Road was subsequently shown to 
members 
of the National Executive Committee).

On moving in 1984 to London, and Kensington CLP, I became secretary of the 
Pembridge branch and soon after chair of the branch.  In 1988/89 I was CLP 
Secretary and in 1989/90, and again in 1993 until moving to Bristol, was 
CLP 
Vice-Chair.  In 1990 I was elected councillor for the Kelfield ward and 
served 
a full four year term, leading on Planning, and Libraries & Arts, and also 
serving on Environmental Services, Education and a number of minor 
committees. 
 Also in 1990 I was CLP delegate to National Conference (which in 
Kensington 
was regarded as a particular reward for hard work over a number of years), 
and 
I unsuccessfully sought adoption as Prospective Parliamentary Candidate 
(PPC) 
for North Hertfordshire and Chelsea.

On moving to Bristol I quickly became Vice-Chair and then Chair of my 
branch.  
In 1995 during the election of the full Bristol Unitary Authority I stood 
in 
the Stockwood ward and narrowly failed, by 17 votes, to unseat the current 
leader of the Conservative group. My
colleague in the ward was elected top of the poll.  In 1996 I was elected 
Chair of Bristol West CLP and also Secretary of the Bristol District 
Labour 
Party.  In November 1996 I was adopted as City Council candidate for my 
home 
ward of Redland and was elected on 1 May this year.  On election I stood 
down 
from all party officerships.  I serve on the Social Services and Corporate 
Services committees, and I am Vice-Chair of both the Community Homes 
Subcommittee (childrens homes) and the Lay Review Panel (children in 
secure 
accommodation).

THE ROAD TO TRANSITION

I have felt something was very wrong for most of my life, but unlike some 
who 
know early on, I was never able to pinpoint what it was (either that or I 
subconsciouly repressed the knowledge)

The key date is 15 June 1997.  I had been increasingly involved in 
discussions 
over a period of 6 months with other transsexuals via the IRC channel 
#UKTV.  
I was also occasionally going dressed to a mixed gay club in 
Weston-super-Mare 
where I found myself drawn far less to the company of TVs (who frankly 
irritated me - I have long known that I did not "fit"
with most TVs) as to women, especially lesbians.  15 June was a Sunday 
morning 
after one of these trips, a flat, uneasy, restless, dissatisfied Sunday 
morning when I went to sit in a pub for a change of scenery and found 
myself 
wondering about whether I might be TS.  It wasn't the first time I'd 
wondered 
about this, but for the first time I saw no harm in exploring and 
confronting 
it.

That night I talked over the Net to Anne, a post-op TS who had been very 
helpful to me.  She thought I should seek help quickly and gave me Russell 
Reid's phone number as well as her own.  I phoned Anne three days later 
and 
spoke to her for over two hours, and became more and more certain that I 
was 
heading in the right direction.

On 20 June I phoned Russell's office and made an appointment for 28 July.  
I 
expected to be nervous doing this but it was matter-of-fact and I was 
amazed 
not to wake up the following morning thinking "My God, what have I done!"

On the 27-29 June I went to stay with "Sue", a TV friend, and her partner 
June, in Haddenham, Cambs, and spent the whole weekend as Ros, albeit 
still 
with wig and padding, including a tour of the village with June (we met 
and 
chatted with the vicar and his churchwarden, and they never batted an 
eyelid!).

On 10-12 July, June (alone) paid a reciprocal visit to me in Bristol. We 
spent 
a whole day out on the 11th with me as Ros.  On June's advice I cast off 
wig 
and padding.  It was a hot day and I wore only a sleeveless summer dress 
and 
sandals, and my own naturally thick wavy and longish hair.  The day 
included 
lunch at a tearoom in Wedmore, Somerset, a tour
of Glastonbury town and abbey, and shopping at Clarks Shopping Village. I 
started the day awkwardly and ended it with almost complete confidence.  
Nobody stared, nobody made any comments, we were both treated courteously 
by 
everybody we met.  At the end of the day Ros went into a local shop for 
two 
tins of cat food without a flicker of nerves.

On 27 July I travelled up, as David, to London the day before my 
appointment 
with Russell.  I stayed in Finsbury Park with another TV friend from 
#UKTV, 
and spent the morning as Ros around the local shops (no problems apart 
from a 
group of 14-y-o ish boys) before going to
Earls Court by tube (no problems) and seeing Russell.  Russell was very 
positive, easy-going and reinforcing.  The day ended with travelling back 
to 
Bristol on the National Express coach as Ros, and finally taxi from the 
bus 
station home which struck the only sour note ("Six pounds sir I mean 
madam" - 
but I had been Ros for 14 hours and was no doubt in
need of a shave!)

On 29 July I saw my GP (as David) for the first time, felt sheepish and 
passed 
her Russells "This is to certify..." note.  I described later her grin 
"from 
Pucklechurch to Portishead".  This is clearly a new experience for her but 
she 
is enjoying it and does her homework between visits.

On 8 August, 9 days into hormones, I noticed the first physical change 
(growth 
of left breast) that was unquestionably not wishful thinking.

On 9 August Anne (post-op, from Manchester) and Julie (4 months ahead of 
me, 
from S Wales) came to visit bearing bottles of champagne, we hit the 
chinese 
takeaway and did a tour of Bristol Harbourside!

On 13 August I felt it was time to start a managed "coming-out" having 
first 
sought help from PFC.  I saw Graham the Regional Organiser and Shelley the 
Chief Whip, and both were very supportive (I made sure both of them knew 
that 
I expected to be treated positively)

On 5 September I flew to Scotland as Ros, in complete confidence, for a 
gathering of Scottish transgender groups in Perthshire.  And flew home 
again 
on 7 September, again no confidence problems.

On 8 September, the day I write, I sat in a council committee as David but 
wearing gold studs in my ears and hair tied up in a pink scrunchie! Nobody 
commented...

On 9 September (tomorrow) I go to London to do my Guardian interview...

On 13 September I go to Solihull to break the news to my mum...

ENDS