A REDDITCH transgender woman is offering a bespoke permanent beard removal for transwomen in the town.

Following the death of her wife, Emma Cooper found a new purpose in life by setting set up a low-cost clinic in Redditch dedicated to helping rid transwomen of facial hair.

Midway through Emma’s transition from male to female, her wife, Tam, was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer.

Tam died a few months later in January 2015, aged 46.

With her life turned upside down, Emma sold their home in Virginia, where they had lived since the late 1990s, and moved back to the UK.

Rebuilding her life has taken Emma in an unexpected direction: the former US Federal Air Marshal decided to set set up a clinic inside The Hair Factory, Eagle Road, North Moons Moat, especially for the transgender community.

She said: "For many transgender women, permanent facial hair removal is one of the key physical aspects of the transition from male to female.

"For transwomen with dark facial hair and fair skin, laser hair removal can sometimes be an effective treatment.

"But for everyone else, permanent beard removal can only be performed via electrolysis: painstakingly treating each follicle individually, a process which can take many hundreds of hours to complete.

"Consequently, it’s one of the most expensive and often unaffordable parts of transitioning from male to female, but one of the most visible."

Frustrated with the lack of affordable beard removal available to transgender women in the UK, Emma re-trained as an electrologist and developed her clinic, called Ectrolysis, specifically with the transgender community in mind.

“Tam was a huge supporter of my transition and a wonderful ally, and she would have loved to have been associated with a project like this,” said Emma.

“For many transgender women, electrolysis isn’t a luxury beauty treatment, yet it’s often priced as such.

"The transgender community is economically-disadvantaged, and I was simply tired of seeing so many transgender women struggling with the lack of truly affordable facial hair removal.

"Somebody needed to step up and change the system, and I had no excuse not to be that person.”

She added that hourly rates at Ectrolysis are between one-third and one-half of what most other clinics charge.

Looking towards the future, Emma hopes to expand the clinic, employing electrologists from within the transgender community.

For more information, email emma@ectrolysis.com or visit ectrolysis.com.