GET Leona Lo talking about windsurfing and it is clear from the way her face lights up that it is her passion.

In fact, her only complaint about it is that some male windsurfers can be quite unchivalrous towards their female counterparts.

'There was one incident - it was a very stormy day and this girl's equipment was being thrashed on the beach. And this guy was there, but he just stood and folded his arms. I had to help her bring her stuff in,' recalls Lo, 32.

'The girl said: 'You are better than a guy', and I was like, 'Well, I used to be one.''

She lets out a droll chuckle at this point, clearly relishing the punchline. But her mirth belies her difficult childhood and youth, feeling like a girl trapped in a boy's body before she underwent sex reassignment surgery in 1997 in Thailand at the age of 22.

She has written about her experiences in From Leonard To Leona, a memoir about her days as a boy in Catholic High School, Hwa Chong Junior College and national service.

As a young man displaying feminine behaviour, Lo was subject to psychological abuse, ranging from taunts from classmates to threats of rape from a sergeant during NS, the latter triggering a mental breakdown and a suicide attempt.

Even after the operation, the emotional upheaval continued as she entered several unhealthy relationships with men who were interested only in an 'exotic experience'.

Although she has changed the names of a lot of characters in the book, the emotions in the diary-like narrative are raw, taken from notes she made during those tumultuous years.

'Some parts are very emotional and naive, but that was how I felt at the time. I didn't want to write on hindsight, I wanted to show the emotional tug-of-war,' she says.

But the parts that were most painful for her to write were about her relationship with her parents, who were confused and dismayed by their only son's desire to become a woman.

'As much as there wasn't any information for me, there wasn't any information for them,' she says of her father, a hawker, and her mother, a retrenched bank teller-turned-housewife.

'They had no one to turn to, and it was very painful for them. Writing about that part is hard because as much as you are angry with them, you know that they didn't know better.'

Her relationship with her parents is now cordial, though not close, and she still lives with them and her teenage sister in a HDB flat. As for her social life, she has been dating someone for two months.

This is not her first book. In 2003, she wrote My Sisters, Their Stories, a photo book which profiled 10 transsexuals from Singapore and Thailand.

This year, she has also given talks to raise awareness of transsexual issues at Stamford House and Nanyang Technological University, and is looking for more speaking engagements at schools and companies.

'Until I stop receiving e-mail from people who need help, I still have a role,' says Lo, who receives two or three letters a week from young transsexuals through her website, leonalo.com

'I hope the authorities will look into health care and pre-operative counselling for young transsexuals, as they are at a very vulnerable stage of their lives.'

Her activism is done on top of her career as a public relations executive and small business owner.

And, of course, there is always the windsurfing, which the previously unathletic Lo picked up only after her operation.

Ironically, it is through the sport that she can indulge in the one thing she misses about being a man - male bonding.

But if some would jump on this as evidence that she can never truly be a woman, she stresses that she is proud to identify herself as a transsexual woman rather than just as a woman.

She says: 'We must be proud of who we are. It is not that I am different from any other woman in the way I feel, but I can't ignore the fact that for 20 years I lived and socialised as a man, and that is not going to go away.

'And whoever loves me has to come to terms with that. It is not something I am ashamed of; it is something I celebrate and am proud of.'

From Leonard To Leona ($18.60 without GST) is available from major bookstores and Select Books.