Southern Regional Organiser

Andrea Brookes

My name is Andrea Brookes and I am the Regional Organiser for the South of England taking over from my very good friend Eleanor in 2021.  I am a trans-woman and have lived full-time since early 2020 enjoying life as my authentic self.  During this time I have enjoyed the experience learning the best way to be and to present the woman I am, I have also derived enormous satisfaction from meeting so many other trans people on my travels around the South of England visiting as many of the events and venues that happen in this area of the country.  I have met many wonderful people and pride myself in having been able to help some of them come to appreciate their true selves.  And that is one of the reasons I joined the Beaumont Society.

I have worked in the IT industry for my entire working life - I am not going to say just how long that is - and fully appreciate the way that modern technology can improve our lives, but also how much of a barrier it can be at times.  However, I feel that the ability that it provides for us to communicate between ourselves at all times and without needing us to travel to meet up somewhere are tremendous benefits that do outweigh the problems that it may cause at times.

I passionately believe that education is the only way of getting people to understand the issues that we as transgendered people face on a daily basis and I actively seek out opportunities to address organisations and groups to try to illustrate some of these issues and to show others that we are just ordinary people trying to live our own lives in the best way we can.  There is no right way to be transgender, everyone is an individual and labels are really not that useful, trying to help people come to terms with this and to help them to overcome any guilt they may be feeling is important to me, especially when there seems to be so many critical comments sent our way.