The Derby TV/TS Group

History.

The Derby TV/TS Group came into existence at the end of 1988. As a result of a very good newspaper article written for me by Lucy Orgill in the Derby Evening Telegraph, and from other sources, I'd been contacted by various people. The only literature I could give them were photocopies of various odd articles. At the time, I was travelling each month to the meeting each month in Birmingham at their old place outside Winson Green prison, which is where I first wore a dress outside my bedroom, after thirty five years in the closet. Every week it was the same, people would phone, say they would come (for their first time) and not turn up.

It is difficult now to appreciate how little was publicly known about transvestism. It was a word that never entered anyone's conversation. From this came the idea for a book The Secret Wardrobe, and the name of The Derby TV/TS Group, as the post office box to which people could write for a copy. I had ideas then about organising a social group, but soon realised that I am not a social person. Besides there was, and is, a perfectly good weekly meeting in Nottingham.

I had also made my telephone number known to Derby FRIEND and the Samaritans. However, at about this time Martine Rose suggested that I go and see a TV and his wife in Chesterfield, who were already running a helpline. There was clearly no point in my re-inventing the wheel, so we joined forces. I continued with the Derby TV/TS Group, while we christened the helpline Trans-Net, and ran both as a joint venture.

It was Derby FRIEND who introduced us to the Derby Council for Voluntary Services, and I helped out on the advisory committee for their self-help project. I'd already given a few talks to small groups around the City, never having spoken in public before, let alone about being a transvestite. One morning I got a phone call at work from the CVS. Could I do a quarter of an hour at a conference they were planning. I said "Yes" and they said, rather diffidently "We're expecting an audience of around two hundred. Can you manage it?" I gulped and said "Yes" again, rather weakly.

While I had the necessary material for a quarter of an hour, I wasn't sure how it would go over to such a large audience. I let it roll around the back of my mind, and one morning as I was drinking my first cup of tea, a strategy suddenly surfaced.

The day arrived, and I drove round to the student centre at the City Hospital. I was billed as the Derby TV/TS Group (naturally) and was to take my turn as the third speaker after the tea break. By that time everyone would be half asleep and thinking about their lunch. Though most of the audience were social workers and community health people, I doubt if many of them knew what 'TV/TS' meant. Some undoubtedly did, for they were glancing furtively at an, unfortunately, rather mannish looking woman. I was in my best dark two-piece business suit and tie. (One of my friends says I look like a banker - at least I think that's what she means.)

So the moment came. My talk was announced. Picture it - this middle-aged man stood up and walked to the rostrum. My first words were "It's at times like this that I remember the 'Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy' and think 'Don't Panic'" It got a laugh and acknowledged my nerves. Then I said, quite simply "I am a transvestite." You could feel the shock. My half-asleep audience was awake and listening.

Over the following months, I did several more talks around the county, then I read in the CVS newsletter about Central Television's Community Service adverts. So we applied, calling ourselves The Gender Line, which helped to put over the message. It's remarkable how much and how little you can say in thirty seconds, but we put together a script, which Central Television approved and, in due course I drove down to the studio in Birmingham.

The advert was to be screened for six days, one week, after the watershed, but reasonably early in the evening. We looked at the schedule - one was just before a football match, another just before Cell Block H. There was no doubt about when the advert appeared. The phone would ring immediately with about five or ten minutes of abuse. Then the serious calls would come in. Some would be TV's just wanting somewhere to go, or somewhere to buy clothes. But some callers were in serious trouble. There would be long frightened silences, then they would pour their hearts out. We also got many calls from wives and girlfriends, and some from doctors and psychiatrists. We took turns resting, and kept the line going all day and night for the week and received very nearly two hundred calls - just from the Central television area.

It may be just my impression, but I like to think that it drew professional attention to closet transvestism as something to be taken seriously.

As a spin-off, both Kilroy and The Time and the Place produced programmes in the following weeks, with representatives from The Beaumont Society and French Place and other groups. Is it just my fancy that the continuing media interest in the subject took off at that time?

Shortly after that, I was made redundant. Without a car, I could no longer attend meetings, and had to curtail my voluntary work around the City. However, it gave me the opportunity to expand the material that I had written, and bring it together in to one book, The Gender Paradox.