The Top Gun Who Become R.A.F. Flight Officer Caz

by Rebecca English in London, Reprinted from The Daily Telegraph, World News 16th August 2000

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An R.A.F. Officer who has flown missions over some of the world's most dangerous war zones has had a sex-change operation. Flight Lieutenant Eric Cookson is now Caroline Paige, the service's first transsexual.

The operation, for which the 39-year-old paid $46,979 was agreed by the R.A.F. and she is now waiting to return to flying duties. It was two years ago that Flight Lieutenant Cookson told senior officers that he was living a secret double life - swapping his uniform skirts and pearls in his off-duty time.

"I have always been Caroline in my own mind", said the new Flt-Lt. Paige. "I was aware of gender problems from a very early age - five was my earliest recollection. I kept it to myself, mainly because I was worried about other people's reaction and my family and the world in general."

"You try to live up to everyone's expectations and just get on with life and hope that these feelings will go away, but they never do. When I was Eric Cookson, I would dress as a woman in my own time behind closed curtains and locked doors."

When the strain of the double life because too much, Flt-Lt. Cookson went to see R.A.F. doctors, who agreed he should have a sex-change. But before having the operation, a patient must prove he can live as a woman for several months.

Flt-Lt. Cookson was given permission to dress in women's clothes and was transferred to a ground posting. She served as a female officer at several bases including R.A.F. Chivenor in Devon, Benson in Oxfordshire and Coningsby, Lincolnshire.

Three months ago, he had the operation.

"I vividly remember the exact date I came out of hospital as a woman: May 10, " said Caroline - or Caz - Paige. From that day, my body matched my feelings."

She had joined the R.A.F. in 1980 and was trained to fly in Top Gun combat planes. As Eric Cookson, she flew regular sorties in Phantom F4 fighters and Bae Hawkes.

While serving at R.A.F. Leuchars in Fife during the Cold War, she was involved in intercepting a total of 33 Soviet patrol planes. In 1992, she switched to helicopters and worked their weapons detection systems. She was involved in front line operations in the buildup to the Gulf War and the Bosnia conflict and has campaign medals from both.

After convalescing following the operation, Flt-Lt. Paige, who earns $103,000 a year, will return to duty as one of only 116 female fliers alongside the R.A.F.'s 4246 male pilots and navigators.

She admits hoping at one time to keep her sex swap a secret.

"I asked for a posting to somewhere where people didn't know me," she said. "But word has now got round and I have had nothing but support from the vast majority of my friends."

Flt-Lt. Paige has nothing but praise for the R.A.F.. Her family, however, have found the change hard to accept.

Her father, Gordon, who lives with his wife Marie in Moreton, Merseyside, said yesterday: "Do I approve? Would you? It's his life - or her life now."

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "If someone is still up to the job, be it after a back operation or a gender realignment operation, they are perfectly entitled to carry on as they were before."

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