Transsexual geisha is former Ministry of Defence worker

A former Ministry of Defence worker called Malcolm has become a transsexual geisha. The 5ft 11, 15 stone former cartographer, who is undergoing hormone treatment and is waiting for sex-change surgery, is now called Mary.

Miss Murdoch, a retired civil servant aged 70, persuaded tourism officials in the Japanese city of Kyoto to allow her to wear the lavish kimonos, heavy make-up and thick black wigs, which are required in the traditional Japanese role.

She said: "My ambition was to dress up as a geisha. I love Japanese culture and dress and wearing the clothes was the thing I looked forward to most."



Miss Murdoch said she was initially prevented from having her photograph taken in the traditional dress because only women could do so.

"I told them I had a female name on my passport and showed them my breasts from having hormone treatment," she said. "After that they were very welcoming and put aside the normal rules for foreign tourists."

Miss Murdoch, from Greenwich, south-east London, retired from the MoD in 1994 after becoming a manager. In the 1970s she took an Open University degree in Sociology. "My job involved mapping military aircraft routes with the Civil Aviation Authority," she said. "It was a very masculine job and a lot of responsibility."