The Story of Stephanie Anne Lloyd
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It was a difficult time, and a heavy cloud hung over Stephanie as waited to learn whether she would be sent to prison - it would have been a male prison at that - but it was a cloud with a silver lining. At the trial, the prosecution pushed for a deal. If she would change her plea to guilty, all charges against Raiko would be dropped. Raiko objected, but Stephanie went in to the dock alone, admitted she may have broken an archaic law, and was sent home with a suspended sentence.
With her days of sexual services now over and Transformation a going concern in it's own right, things looked good. But the best was yet to come with David's proposal of marriage.
Accepting the proposal was easy, but carrying it through through would be different again. Another archaic law in the UK prevents transsexuals legally marrying someone of the opposite sex. So, in February 1986, the couple flew to Sri Lanka for a Valentine's Day wedding in the sun. It was a second marriage for both of them, although for Stephanie of course her first as a bride resplendent in a beautiful, off-white dress.
"David had taught me what true love really means, and I couldn't have been happier," she said. "It was a fairy-tale wedding and honeymoon for us both.
"Obviously, we would have liked our marriage to have been recognised as lawful in this country, and it's quite ludicrous that it still isn't to this day. But we weren't going to let that get in the way of our happiness."
Back home, David concentrated his efforts on his food chain business, while Raiko and Stephanie looked to the future of Transformation. Customers were now coming into the shop, but there was a vast untapped market out there still trapped in a secret, hidden world and who hadn't yet dared cross the threshold. They needed a top quality mail order service.
The first Transformation catalogue was to be like one never seen before. Stephanie wanted only the finest photography, the glossiest printing and the prettiest models - both male and female - to wear the most feminine clothes. But of course, she faced problems.
"It was difficult to find a good studio willing to take on such an unusual project, as nobody had ever photographed TVs before except for places who specialised in porn. We wanted elegant photos to show how well our clothes looked on TVs.
Eventually we were lucky in persuading a top studio in Manchester to take us seriously, and we've never looked back. The results from that first shoot were breathtaking, and the photographer was amazed at how professional the TV models could look. We've regularly used the same studio ever since."
Finding someone to print Transformation's catalogue - and its new range of contact magazines and the fledgling TV Scene - was even more problematic. The lads in the printing trade weren't happy about being linked with transvestites and their bosses just turned down the job.
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