Why are we so scared of women's body hair?

It is an ideal so universally adhered to that it has become unquestionable: men are hairy, and women are not. Other than the superficial but widespread claim that female body hair is ‘disgusting’ and ‘unfeminine’, explanations are never given as to why women are expected to be hairless, even though few of them are naturally so. Neither are explanations ever sought. But whatever else might be behind it, our aversion to female body hair certainly has no basis in logic.

Hair in the right places on a woman’s body is a source of pride, envy and lust. A head of plentiful hair is a benchmark in traditional feminine beauty; it might be preceded by such adjectives as ‘luscious’ or ‘glossy’, or praised for having a ‘sheen’. Countless products, each with the aim of maximising its seductive potential, are available to buy anywhere and everywhere. A lack of it can be cause for shame and stigma, and a woman who has lost her hair through chemotherapy or alopecia is likely to hide this fact as best she can under a wig or bandanna.

But hair in the wrong places evokes disgust and revulsion. It is its presence, not its lack, that is cause for shame and stigma, and the overwhelming majority of women devote significant amounts of time to ridding themselves of it. Too much leg, underarm or pubic hair is likely to be denounced as ‘wild’ or ‘unkempt’, and a hairy woman is considered eccentric, lazy, dirty, ugly or – horror of horrors – masculine. The hair that grows between a woman’s legs or under her arms is the same biological substance as the hair that she lovingly washes, brushes and styles, but its meaning could not be more different.

The average woman is well-versed in the relative merits of this or that method of hair removal. Shaving is easiest, but the hair grows back quicker; waxing lasts longer, but is painful and expensive; hair removal creams and bleaches are effective but might irritate the skin; laser surgery solves the problem forever but costs a small fortune. And while she might complain about the inconvenience, commiserating with her female friends about it ‘not being fair’ and chastising her male ones for ‘having it easy’, the chances of her actually questioning the practice of hair removal, of asking herself why she is doing it, who she is doing for, and what would happen if she didn’t, are slim. Although it is often costly, painful and time-consuming, removing our body hair is not something we ever think about. It is just what we do.

Whether or not this is a relatively recent phenomenon is unclear. According to Dr. Karín Lesnik-Oberstein, editor of The Last Taboo: Women and Body Hair, the historical evidence for women’s hair removal practices is ‘rather mixed’.

‘There’s a lot of assumption that historically, this is something that women have always done,’ she says. ‘A lot of people assume that even in Egyptian days, women were already shaving their legs, and you can find evidence of that. But on the other hand, there is also evidence which argues that women until quite recently didn’t shave their legs, and that this is something that only came to the fore when they actually started showing their legs.’

Representations of women in art and literature do not help us draw any concrete conclusions about the changing perceptions of women’s body hair. If hair removal is a recent development, as has been suggested, why is it that in hundreds of paintings from countless art movements, the nudes are so hairless as to appear childlike? In Madame Bovary, the down on Emma’s upper lip is given as an example of her beauty, but as Daniela Caselli points out in her chapter in The Last Taboo, Marian’s ‘moustache’ in The Woman in White is described as ugly and inappropriately masculine.

Female body hair, Lesnik-Oberstein suggests, is far more likely to be considered attractive if it is light and soft. If it is coarse and dark, a boundary is crossed – a woman becomes troubling because she looks too much like a man. The distaste with which a woman with an uncommon amount of hair may regard her own body is compounded and confirmed by the hostile reactions of those around her. In the past, ‘bearded ladies’ were put on display in travelling freak shows; today, a woman with hair on her chest, face, stomach, back or hands is diagnosed with ‘hirsutism’ and offered medical help.

Our discomfort with the issue manifests itself in a widespread reticence to talk about it. As Lesnik-Oberstein points out in her own contribution to The Last Taboo, we rarely hear or read anything about women’s body hair ‘other than brief and repetitive instructions on how to remove it’. Even feminist scholars have neglected the subject – The Last Taboo is so far the only academic book to discuss it in any detail. Lesnik-Oberstein initially had difficulty getting the book published, she says, because the subject matter was considered either too marginal or too revolting to be of interest to readers.

‘The idea was that to talk about this, you’re either talking about something totally irrelevant, or you’re talking about something which is so aggressively feminist that no one wants to know about it,’ she says. ‘Either body hair is seen to be trivial [...] or else so monstrous, so threatening, so extreme, that it’s actually dangerous even to raise it, because then you just threaten all of the progress feminism has made.’

But many of those who are prepared to take the issue seriously are nonetheless influenced by the social constructs they criticise. Questioning cultural norms is not the same thing as rejecting them. Even after researching the issue in some depth, I have neither the inclination nor the courage to stop removing my own body hair. Even if I am unsure why, exactly, I am doing it, I will continue to shave my legs.

‘Being aware of these issues, even being very theoretically informed about them,’ says Lesnik-Oberstein, ‘doesn’t equate with what people actually feel about being attractive, being feminine, feeling good about themselves.’

It is this that lies at the heart of the issue. However illogical our obsession with hairlessness, it is so deeply embedded in the collective psyche that it goes unnoticed, unquestioned and unchallenged. But whether or not it will always be so remains to be seen, because what is perceived as beautiful or ugly has always been subject to change – perhaps shaving or waxing will seem as bizarre a practice to future generations as whitening the face or wearing corsets seem to us today. Before we can stop feeling ashamed of our body hair, however, we must first stop pretending it does not exist.

The Last Taboo: Women and Body Hair, edited by Karín Lesnik-Oberstein, is now out in paperback, published by Manchester University Press.

Never Let Me Go: too tasteful for its own good

It is my personal view that any film described by the Daily Telegraph as 'beautiful, uncompromising and heart-stoppingly moving' should be approached with caution. It was with this in mind that I went to see Never Let Me Go, expecting something average that I could enjoy on a superficial level, maybe have a quiet cry about, and forget as soon as I left the cinema.

Based on the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro and set in an alternate reality in which terminal illness is a thing of the past, it tells the story of Kathy, Tommy and Ruth, childhood friends growing up at an apparently idyllic boarding school in the heart of the English countryside, which is later revealed to be an institution for organ donors. The students are all clones, created as sets of spare parts and hidden away from the rest of society until called up to start donating their vital organs, a process that means none of them survive beyond their late twenties. It's none too believable but it’s a good premise for a weepy, especially when there is so much potential for a pair of star-crossed lovers to be brutally robbed of their futures by forces beyond their control.

But in the event, the film not only left me cold – it grated. Predictably, one of its major flaws is the presence of Keira Knightley, who, demoted to a supporting role for a change, plays the domineering Ruth. To her credit, Knightley does appear to have spent some time updating her catalogue of facial expressions, and I will even be so bold as to suggest that her pouting days are behind her. The jutting chin, however, is as trusty a standby as ever, as is the pre-sneeze-like twitch of the right nostril, and although she flaunts a set of newly-minted, never-before-seen emotions, none of them are quite as convincing on the silver screen as we must assume they were in her bathroom mirror.

Otherwise, the acting is perfectly acceptable – even commendable. Andrew Garfield gives a convincing performance as the awkward but charming Tommy, while Carey Mulligan’s Kathy, though she wears a concerned frown the entire way through, nonetheless commands respect – a pillar of sad strength, she is natural and very likeable. Unfortunately, however, they are not enough to redeem the film of its many faults. Visually, it can justifiably be described as beautiful. But it is a very generic, irritating kind of beauty – precisely the same kind, in fact, as in The King’s Speech, The Duchess, Atonement, Pride and Prejudice, and others of that ilk: soft-edged, pleasant, and terribly, terribly British. Above all else, this film is a benchmark in middle-class Good Taste. There are more wet leaves, narrow lanes and windswept beaches than in an issue of Country Living magazine, and the costumes might have been ordered from a Toast catalogue. There is soft focus in abundance, wintry sunlight that bathes everything in a wistful but flattering glow, a token helping of kitsch-chic and just the right amount of mud.

The film is far too tasteful to expose us to any real, genuine misery, even though the three protagonists are all to die slow, painful and lonely deaths. Instead it's all about heartbreak, and tragedy – pained glances, doomed love and tormented souls who undoubtedly take comfort in the fact that they look simply ravishing when they cry. Even Mother Nature is sympathetic to their plight, and manipulates the weather accordingly. And just in case our heartstrings forget to be tugged, a mournful cello melody rings out over the most tragic moments of all.

This country has a tradition of producing nice, polite films about beautiful but tortured people, set in a fantasy Britain that is simultaneously glamorous and quintessential. Never Let Me Go is its latest offering, and despite a relatively original storyline, it still manages to feel formulaic. Well-acted (with one notable exception) but replete with cinematic clichés and mournfully lacking in subtlety, it might be a pleasant enough experience if you can suspend your disbelief, but it is a tedious waste of an evening if you can't.

Hypochondria: a health condition in its own right

 No one gets through life without a health scare. Everyone knows what it is to rush to the doctor in a panic, or to scour self-diagnosis websites with baited breath and sweaty palms. After a trip to the doctor, however, and perhaps a test or two, the majority of us go back to everyday life and forget all about it. But some do not. Some cannot. Some remain so convinced that their symptoms are the sign of a terminal disease that no amount of reassurance can convince them otherwise; others are so scared of what their doctor might say that they are unable to make an appointment in the first place. Hypochondria, now known as health anxiety or illness phobia, is frequently dismissed as needless fretting, a trivial concern of the neurotic and the self-absorbed. But in reality it is a genuine, disabling psychological condition, and it can have a devastating effect on a sufferer's ability to lead a happy and fulfilling life.

When I was sixteen, I spent the best part of a year convinced I was dying of multiple sclerosis. It began when I watched 'Hilary and Jackie', the biopic of the legendary cellist Jacqueline du Pré, whose career was cut short by MS when she was in her twenties and who died of the disease at the age of 42, fourteen years after it was diagnosed. By the end of the film, du Pré, played by Emily Watson, is confined to her bed, unable to control a single muscle in her body and dependent on carers to feed, wash and dress her.

It was perhaps not a wise film choice for someone with a chronic fear of disease. But I didn't think of that. I just thought it was a good film, so I watched it again, and again, and as I watched it, something happened in my brain. In the weeks that followed, I began to wonder if I wasn't exhibiting some of the same symptoms du Pré had experienced in the early stages of her illness. The tired feeling I sometimes had in my legs, especially when I climbed stairs – did it mean something was wrong with me? My hands trembled sometimes, too – should I be worried? The tingling sensation I occasionally felt in my back made me uneasy, as did the muscle palpitations that seemed to be occurring with increasing frequency. My concern rapidly turned into fear. Before long I was convinced that something terrible was happening to my body.

Panicking, I googled 'multiple sclerosis'. Reading the lists of symptoms brought me out in a cold sweat; those I had not already noticed I began looking for obsessively. After reading that uncontrollable head or tongue movements were always cause for serious concern, I found myself in front of the mirror, examining my tongue for signs of abnormal movement. I scrutinised my hands and panicked over the slightest tremor. I held my arms and legs in strenuous, unnatural positions and told myself that any resulting pain or muscle fatigue was evidence of something sinister. I even watched my shadow for twitches and shakes. It comes as no surprise to me now to learn that health anxiety is often classified within the Obsessive Compulsive spectrum of anxiety disorders.

According to Terri Torevell of the charity Anxiety UK, some sufferers of health anxiety will go to their doctor 'countless times'. Negative test results and verbal reassurance from medical professionals do nothing to quell their fears. Others, like me, are the opposite – they avoid doctors because they are too afraid to face up to the diagnosis they believe to be inevitable.

I didn't just avoid telling my doctor – I avoided telling anyone at all. For months, I kept my fears to myself. I longed for the reassurance doctors had offered me in the past, but I didn't for a moment believe I would get it. There was so obviously something wrong with me, I thought, that anyone I told would have no option but share my concern. Whenever I considered going to my GP I imagined her recommending, with a grim expression, that I go to hospital for further tests, and I simply couldn't bring myself to make the appointment. However miserable they were making me, I preferred to live with my fears than risk having them validated.

Had it occurred to me at any point that I might be suffering from an anxiety disorder rather than an actual physical condition, I would undoubtedly have been able to move on much quicker than I did. Seeking help might have opened my eyes to the fact that being 'healthy' doesn't necessarily mean being entirely pain- or sensation-free, and crucially, to the possibility that my constant state of fear might not just have been the result, but the cause of the symptoms I was experiencing.

'Anxiety produces very real physical symptoms,' says Torevell. 'With people suffering from health anxiety, they misinterpret these normal physical reactions to anxiety, and believe them to be signs of their feared illness.

'One of the things we often say to people on the helpline, when they're calling in the throes of a panic attack, is that nobody has ever died from a panic attack,' she continues. 'The worst thing that can happen to them is already happening. And panic attacks and prolonged anxiety cannot go on forever. It has its ebbs and flows, it has peaks and troughs and it will ease eventually.'

Calling a helpline such as this might have saved me months of misery. Instead, I let my fear take over my life. It cast a shadow over everything I did. I couldn't bear to think about the future – about going to university, or starting a career, or travelling the world – because I didn't believe I would live that long. I was plagued by a constant, nagging worry, which regularly escalated into panic. Sometimes I was so scared I couldn't think straight. There was no respite, no situation in which I could feel at ease. I simply could not escape it.

Eventually, when I could stand it no longer, I told my mother everything. Just talking to someone made me felt better, although it by no means solved everything. But as the days and weeks went by, I found myself feeling more relaxed. I began considering the possibility that my symptoms were nothing more than my body telling me to do some exercise. The less I worried, the less I noticed them. Gradually, they disappeared altogether, taking my anxiety with them.

But my experience with health anxiety has left its mark. Even now, five years later, I avoid reading, watching or listening to anything that so much as mentions multiple sclerosis, and while I don't fear it like I did, I do fear the appearance of some new and unmistakable symptom. I fear the blind panic that will inevitably ensue. I fear the sinking feeling, the cold sweat, the rising heart rate. Most of all I fear the possibility that next time, my worries will be justified.

Health anxiety is not trivial, and nor is it comic. It can ruin people's lives. It ruined a good few months of mine, and I am fully aware that it might do so again. But next time, at least, I will know that I am not alone, and that help is out there, and that I do not have to suffer in silence.

Anxiety UK is the nation's leading anxiety disorders charity. Advice and support for sufferers of conditions including agoraphobia, post traumatic stress disorder and social phobia can be found at www.anxietyuk.org.uk, or by calling the helpline on 08444 775 774. Lines are open Monday to Friday between 9.30 and 5.30. All members of staff have personal experience with anxiety.

The rich world of English folk music

'Try everything once,' goes the oft-quoted one-liner usually attributed to the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, 'except incest and Morris dancing.'

Humorous, perhaps, and certainly an old standby in the national repository of sarcastic wit. But this almost legendary quote speaks volumes about the English attitude towards folk culture. It is an attitude that can be summarised in a single word: disdain.

Unlike in Scotland or Ireland, where it is a source of cultural pride, traditional music in England simply does not have a place in the national consciousness. It has long suffered from bad associations and negative stereotyping, and folk musicians, when they are not ignored, are scorned.

'You could say that folk traditions have been disregarded,' says the award-winning folk  singer, songwriter and violinist, Chris Wood, 'but you could go further. You could say they've been ridiculed.'

Unsurprisingly, the world of traditional English folk music is infinitely richer than the clichés would have us believe. There is more to it than Greensleeves, Scarborough Fair and Somerset guitar-strummers in sandals and Aran sweaters. From the heavyweights of the 1960s folk revival like Norma Waterson and Martin Carthy, to younger musicians like their daughter, Eliza Carthy, fiddle and squeezebox duo Spiers and Boden and 11-piece band Bellowhead, folk musicians are keeping alive a colossal body of work. The English folk repertoire is a rich and diverse collection of dance tunes, ballads, shanties, hymns, drinking songs, work songs and seasonal songs, many of them centuries-old. Most of them are wrought with emotions that still ring true today, generations after they were first sung.

Indeed, it is partly thanks to its timeless relevance that folk music endures. For even when the words are archaic, the essence of a folk song is frequently as pertinent to its modern performers and listeners as it was to its original ones.

'The themes of life never change,' says Malcolm Taylor, director of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library at the English Folk Dance and Song Society. 'Love, sex, death, war, trickery, deception ... People are still suffering the same emotions – people are still jilting each other, killing each other, beating each other. It's all in the songs. They have a resonance down the ages.'

Take 'Hard Times of Old England', penned by an anonymous songwriter sometime during the Napoleonic wars. Come all brother tradesmen that travel along, it goes, can anyone tell me where the trade has all gone? Long time I have travelled and cannot find none, and it's oh, the hard times of old England. It is a line that would resonate with any victim of economic hardship – not just from the era of the song, but from any era. It might resonate with a victim of the credit crunch.

The decks were all spattered with blood, laments another song, and so loudly the cannons did roar; and thousands of times have I wished myself at home, and all along with my Polly on the shore. It is a striking reminder that the pain of war was as deeply felt two hundred years ago as it is today – replace 'decks' with 'roadside' and 'cannons' with 'bombs', and it might have been written by a soldier in Afghanistan. And in case proof were needed that libido has long been a source of musical inspiration, 'Bonny Black Hare' confirms that sex was always high on our list of priorities. Lock your legs round me and dig in with your heels, it goes, for the closer we get, oh, the better it feels.

It is easy to think of our ancestors as being somehow different from us, but these songs are a poignant reminder that they were, in fact, just the same. Their social and political circumstances may have been different to ours; they may have spoken differently, worn different clothes and eaten different food. But they still felt the same things we feel and wanted the same things we want. They were every bit as human as we are.

When the top-down, establishment-approved version of history holds that the extraordinary alone is worthy of remembrance, it is unsurprising that we know more about the treaties, battles and monarchs of yesteryear than we do about the real people. But folk music redresses this balance. It shows us, says Wood, 'how beautiful, how dark and miraculous is the ordinary.'

More than this, it offers an insight into the past in a way the textbooks do not. As the only outlet through which the often-illiterate lower classes could make their voices heard, folk songs offer a different telling of history – one that starts at the bottom. This, says Wood, is one of the reasons they are so important – because they tell us 'the bits of history Churchill didn't bother with.'

'They have our real story,' he continues. 'The people who made folk songs weren't doing it for a living – they didn't have an agenda, there was no reason for them to tell anything other than what they perceived as the truth. Whereas for historians and archivists, it's a lot harder for them to do that. I would argue that folk songs contain the bits of history that we need to know.'

Folk music, he says emphatically, needs to be sung. 'It needs to be sung because it is understood as being beautiful, because it's rich, and it's layered, and it's complex. It needs to be sung because it will teach us who we are.'

The novelist Kazuo Ishiguro has described the English folk repertoire as a treasure chest waiting to be delved into. It is up to us to open it. We are the people, after all. We are the folk, and this is our music. The songs are there in abundance, waiting to be sung and listened to and learned and passed on. They just need us to appreciate their worth.

Let's not forget the peaceful majority whose rights have been abused

Midday, Thursday 9^th December. Crowds of students, teenagers and lecturers, bussed in from all over the country, gather on Malet Street, at the University of London Union.

They are here because today is the day that MPs will vote on the most talked-about policy in recent months: the changes to university tuition fees. They are here because today is an historic day that will determine the course of countless futures. They are here because they believe that education is a right, not a privilege, and that it should not be turned into a commodity, available only to those undeterred by the prospect of leaving university in tens of thousands of pounds of debt.

I am a finalist; the friend I am with is a recent graduate. The cuts to education are unlikely to affect us directly, but solidarity is the word of the day. I am fairly pessimistic about the effect today’s protests will have on the government, but I couldn’t not come. We might not hold out much hope of changing anything, but we will not take this lying down.

Before we are allowed to march, there are the speeches. There are speakers from everywhere – from schools, colleges and universities, and from the unions. Some of them are minors. There is even a Booker prize-winner, Ben Okri, who reads us a poem written especially for the occasion.

‘This country has turned a corner in spirit,’ he says. ‘You are the turning of that corner.’

From Malet Street, we march the agreed route: through Russell Square, down Southampton Row and Kingsway, along Strand, through Trafalgar Square and past St James’ Park, before eventually arriving in Westminster. On the way, the atmosphere is lively, but peaceful – we walk briskly, enjoying the winter sun, waving our placards as we chant. No ifs, no buts, no education cuts! is by far the favourite. On the sidelines, people watch us go by, some of them with cameras; above us, they peer out of windows and lean over balconies, pointing and waving. We pass a man in a suit giving out ‘sweets for the protesters’.

When we arrive, things are busy and cheerful. If there is violence, we see none of it. On the northern side of Parliament Square, people are milling about, talking in groups, sitting on the ground, waiting for something to happen. There is an Italian sandwich shop open on Parliament Street with a long queue outside; on a traffic island just off the square, people are giving impromptu speeches into a megaphone. A group of percussionists with the widest grins I have seen all day forms a circle and plays samba. The closest anyone gets to doing anything illegal is shinning up a lamppost or climbing the wrought iron sign above the entrance to Westminster tube station.

The atmosphere starts to turn sour as the afternoon wears on. My friend and I wander around Parliament Square at about three: barriers have been broken down and trampled on. Walls and statues are covered in graffiti, and in the centre of the square, someone has set fire to a pair of wooden benches. At one point, there is a sudden wave of panic and people start running in all directions. I find out later that there have been clashes with police officers on horseback.

As darkness falls, we decide to go home. We came here to march, not to fight. The violence will only get worse, especially when the government announces its inevitable victory, and we want to leave while we still can.

But we can’t leave. We can’t get out. Every entrance to Parliament Square is blocked by a line of riot police, reinforced by vans and further rows of shielded officers. We approach the barricades cautiously. When will we be allowed out? we ask.

‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,’ says a policeman.

Eventually they tell us that the exit is at Whitehall. There they are letting people out, one by one. One by one! There are hundreds of people – thousands – in Parliament Square. But to Whitehall we go. In the smallest, tightest corner, in between a large stone wall and the iron railings of the underground entrance, people are waiting to be allowed out. The wait looks to be a long one, but we join the queue nonetheless.

We are crammed into a space that is barely more than three metres wide. People start chanting: let us out. As frustration levels mount, the possibility of getting crushed against that wall or those railings starts to seem scarily immediate. It would only take one person with a brick, or a snooker ball, or a firecracker (and there are plenty of them about) to cause someone some serious damage. A couple of metres away, on the other side of the entrance to the underground, is the empty security box that will later be engulfed in flames. I would rather be out in the open, away from this space in which we are cornered and helpless. But if we leave, it could be hours before we get out. It might be hours anyway.

But after a tense twenty minutes, they let us through. There is another line of police to get past, and then we are free.

We discover later that we got out just in time. Shortly after we leave, the police close the barricades completely, trapping the protesters, peaceful and violent alike. A little later, when I am safely at home, I receive a text message: ‘Thousands and thousands of young people, workers and lecturers have been kettled for 6 hours and up, in parliament square and now on westminster bridge for more than an hour. No access to toilets, water, food. V. cold. Please spread.’

The police, refusing to discriminate between the peaceful, law-abiding protesters and the perpetrators of the violence, punished them all, despite the fact that the vast majority no longer wished to be on the increasingly apocalyptic front line, and wanted little more than to go somewhere warm, to eat something, to go to the toilet. They were not there to cause trouble, or to hurt anyone, or to damage anything – they were there because they wanted to make their voices heard, or because they wanted to be a part of the story, or because their consciences simply wouldn’t let them stay away. By the time they were allowed to leave, shortly before midnight – twelve hours after the start of the protest – they had been denied their basic human rights for hours on end.

We must not forget this, even if fires and chaos make better television. Just as much as the surging crowds, the running policemen and that picture of Charles and Camilla, it needs to be remembered.

Born in the wrong body: living with gender dysphoria

Julia Ford: 'I've never been so happy
as I am now.'

When I talk to 53-year old Julia Ford, I have little trouble believing her when she claims to be as 'mad as a bag of spanners'. She is lively, funny and extremely talkative; our conversation lasts for over two hours. Her stories have me in near-hysterics, and even at her most serious, I never have to wait long for a joke. But a few years ago, she was so severely depressed that she was losing one or two pounds in weight a day. If I had phoned her back then, she assures me, we would have had a very different conversation.

Julia was born male, and until relatively recently was known as David. Despite having identified as female since her early childhood, she spent more than two decades in a relationship with a female partner whose children looked upon her as their father. But six years ago, her partner – the only person aware of her true gender identity – died suddenly. In the months that followed, Julia began feeling unable to continue living as a man.

When, after months of unsuccessful treatment for depression, she eventually broke down and admitted the truth to her doctor, Julia was diagnosed with gender dysphoria – the condition where a person's perception of their own gender does not match up with the sexual characteristics of their body. Some individuals identify as transgender, or gender variant, without wishing to medically change gender – they may cross dress, or take on a role traditionally perceived as belonging to the opposite sex. But in severe cases, the discomfort that arises from the condition is so extreme that the individual is left no option but to go through a process of gender reassignment, ending up with a new body and a new identity.

It is impossible to know exactly how many people in this country are living with gender dysphoria, for the simple reason that many of them keep it a secret. In a 2009 study, the Gender Identity Research and Education Society (GIRES) reported that although only 10,000 people have so far presented for treatment, a further 50,000-90,000 may yet do so. The number of people seeking treatment for gender dysphoria is rising by 15% per year, perhaps an indication that attitudes to transgender people are gradually becoming more tolerant.

According to Rory Smith of The Gender Trust, a national charity that supports those affected by gender identity issues, many of those who seek treatment go on to integrate seamlessly into the wider community. 'Most people just want to transition and get on with their lives,' he says. After transitioning, many people go into 'stealth', whereby they live as their new gender without making it known that they have gone through a process of gender reassignment (although this, Smith says, is easier for trans men than for trans women, who despite hormone treatment and voice therapy are often unable to entirely cover up their masculine bone structure or to 'unbreak' their voices).

Despite this, transphobia is still, he says, 'something that really needs to be tackled.' Since she came out four years ago, Julia has been not only rejected by the children she brought up as her own, but threatened by them. She is nonetheless admirably self-confident – and while the inhabitants of her small village were predictably shocked when she first began living and dressing as a woman, she has become a well-known and well-liked figure in her local community. Others, however, find it significantly more difficult.

'Lots of people go out at night rather than the day, which is a lot more dangerous,' she says. 'Who's going to attack you in Tesco? There are all these people who can't or won't go out – it drives some of them to suicide because they don't know who to turn to or who to speak to.' In a report by the Brighton-based LGBT research organisation, Count Me In Too, 58% of trans respondents felt marginalised because of their identity. One woman described being transgender as 'a continual process of exclusion, pain and suffering.' Trans people are over five times as likely to have attempted suicide than non-trans people, and are 'significantly more likely' to have been affected by depression, anxiety, isolation, insomnia, panic attacks and addictions and dependencies.

For all her confidence and humour, Julia is certain that continuing to live as a man would eventually have killed her. 'If I hadn't made that choice to become my real self,' she says, 'I wouldn't have survived much longer. I used to sleep with a razor blade at the side of my bed every night. I wasn't afraid of dying, but I didn't want to die, so that was why I made the decision to talk to my doctor.' Doing so, she says, 'was like someone had lifted a ten-ton weight off me.'

Nonetheless, Julia regrets waiting so long before seeking help. 'I just wish I could press rewind, go back and start again,' she says. It is by no means uncommon for transgender people to wait until later in life before coming out. Countless trans people settle down and raise families before they make their gender identity known; indeed, the median age for transitioning is 42.

'Most people hate themselves for it and hide it for years on end,' says Smith.

Today, Julia is determined to do all she can to help others struggling with gender dysphoria. 'People are ashamed of it, and you should never be ashamed of who you are. That's why I want to raise awareness ... I can't do much, but every little bit helps.' She encourages anyone dealing with a gender identity issue to speak to their doctor as early on as possible.

Julia grew up in a pre-internet society, and was forced to read the majority of the dictionary before she learned of the existence of the word 'transsexual'. But today, information and advice are available at the click of a mouse. 'Hit the internet,' is Smith's advice to people coming to terms with gender dysphoria. 'Start talking to people – even if you can't talk to family and friends, you can talk to people on forums. Look at Youtube blogs … You're not alone, and you see that if you look on the internet.' Finding out you are one of many, he says, is 'amazing'.

Currently undergoing a gruelling process of hormone treatment, Julia hopes to complete her transition next autumn. 'I've never been so happy as I am now,' says Julia. 'I want other people to feel what I feel now – I'm living proof that it's possible. All it takes is courage.'

For information and support about gender dysphoria and other gender-related issues:

www.gendertrust.org.uk

www.gires.org.uk

www.transgenderzone.com

www.beaumontsociety.org.uk

www.genderedintelligence.co.uk

Racism's last stronghold: why are Gypsies and Travellers so universally hated?

In 2006 Jon Blunkell, the Travellers' Liaison Officer at Norfolk County Council, received an email. 'Why do you pander to these pikey rats,' ranted the sender, 'when what is actually needed is for them to be exterminated like the vermin they are; you are a disgrace to every decent human in this land.'

It comes as a shock to be faced with such vehemently neo-Nazi sentiment, exposed in all its ugliness, far removed from the political rhetoric that often dilutes it. Britain has become so accepting of other cultures – relatively speaking, at least – that it is sometimes easy to forget that such attitudes are still prevalent. But discrimination against Gypsies and Travellers has been a problem for centuries, and it shows no sign of abating now.

Compared to many other European countries, Britain's record is fairly clean. But the belief that Gypsies and Travellers are all deviant, tax-evading layabouts with scant regard for the law is worryingly widespread for a country that prides itself on its multi-ethnicity.

'I don't particularly like them,' says Derek*, 'because of the mess they normally leave in the areas they inhabit, the fact they don't pay tax, they camp illegally ... why should any normal person have to pay rates … when they can just jump on a piece of land?'

What he fails to point out – and indeed, may well not be aware of – is that many Gypsies and Travellers live on clean, tidy, legal caravan sites, working as hard and paying as much in taxes as their house-dwelling neighbours. 26-year old Dina lives on a small Traveller site near Norwich. It is neat and well-kept; the interior of her caravan is spotless. It annoys her, she says, that a minority of anti-social Gypsies and Travellers give law-abiding people like herself and her family a bad name.

'We all get judged for what one set of Travellers do. It's hard. You're never going to get out of that, I don't think.

'I pay my taxes,' she continues. 'Not all Travellers are signing on. Half of us are working ... I've worked since I was 16, I've never been without a job.'

But discrimination because of her ethnicity is something Dina must put up with on a regular basis.

'If we want to go out for a night and we phone for a taxi, they say they're fully booked. They won't come down here because it's a Traveller site,' she says. Her husband was recently called a 'stinky rotten pikey' by a colleague, while her own employer claims that 'all you Gypsies are the same' and threatens to set 'her Gypsy girls' on anyone who causes her trouble.

The media does nothing to temper this kind of prejudice. Much of the coverage given to Gypsies and Travellers serves only to exacerbate existing tensions and create further stigma around an already stigmatised people. In a society obsessed with political correctness, it barely seems credible that an entire ethnic group is still hounded by the press with no fear of retribution. But headline archives reveal prejudices that simply would not be tolerated if they were targeting any other group.

'Gypsies ruined our kids' school,' claims one; 'Gypsies invade park and ride,' says another. It would be unthinkable to write 'Muslims ruined our kids' school' or 'Gays invade park and ride'. The media tries desperately to avoid making comments that could be construed as offensive to minorities, so why do libellous claims about Gypsies and Travellers appear so frequently in the right-wing press?

Part of the reason, says Blunkell, is that many people are unaware that Travellers are a recognised ethnic minority, and therefore do not realise that hostility towards them counts as racism. Another important factor, he says, is that no one is fighting their case – travelling communities are not organised to make legal defences themselves, while low levels of education mean many Gypsies and Travellers aren't aware of exactly what is said about them, and wouldn't know how to go about making a complaint if they did.

'They are by far the least educated group in society,' says Blunkell. 'A lot of our adult Gypsies are illiterate, so they don't know what is being written about them.'

Worryingly, discrimination against Gypsies and Travellers is often institutional. In 2005 the deputy leader of Dartford Borough Council spoke of his support for The Sun's aptly-named 'Stamp On The Camps' campaign, despite it having been described by one Traveller group as 'misleading, discriminatory and likely to incite racial hatred'. Many local authorities, Blunkell says, do all they can to assimilate groups of Gypsies and Travellers, forcing them into 'bricks and mortar' housing rather than providing them with legal caravan sites.

Things do not look likely to improve under the new government. While local authorities under Labour were required to provide a specific number of legal Traveller sites, the Lib-Con coalition has given district councils back the power to decide how many pitches are necessary, and Blunkell is certain that some of them will refuse to provide any sites at all – particularly since funding for doing so has been cut by 100%.

'I don't know any other sector that's been hit that hard,' he says.

But more legal sites are exactly what is needed in order to narrow the divide between Travellers and non-Travellers. Without them, Travellers are forced to set up illegal camps on private land, where their presence is usually unwanted and often prompts horror stories to be published in the local and national news. If more were able to integrate into their communities and live peacefully alongside their neighbours, the deep-set, age-old prejudice might eventually start to wane. But while the current situation continues, Gypsies and Travellers look set to face discrimination for many years yet.

*Not his real name.