Transgender Summer Mendes considered taking the most extreme course of action to get rid of her manhood as she stared into the knife drawer. 

It was a moment of sheer desperation that led her to write a heartbreaking suicide note because she was so fed up of living in the wrong body.

She had kept her true gender a secret for more than 40 years, and it was that moment Summer, formerly known as Marc, decided to fight against the torment and truly become a woman.

She told the Gazette in 2011 she decided to follow her heart by dressing as a woman and following the medical procedures required to become female.

“People don’t realise this is a common thought transgender people have, to cut it off and get rid of it for good,” Summer revealed.

“The thought crept into my head and somehow I stopped myself. The real turning point was when I heard of another transgender who died doing the same thing.”

The former chef from Johnstone saw a psychiatrist, took oestrogen, grew her hair long and underwent laser hair removal.

Now she has gone from a “depressed and shy” man to a stunning and confident woman called Summer.

And she has also told of her joy in being given the go-ahead for the sex change operation she had always dreamt of.

“I’ve been told it will be in six months time,” Summer beamed. “It’s been a long process, I was crying when I came off the phone after I was told it had been signed off.

“People don’t understand how difficult it’s been living all of my life in the wrong body that I was supposed to.

“It’s the best thing in the world.”

The Gazette told previously how Summer had been forced to live in a cafe for three years as she attempted to save cash for the gender reassignment operation.

For almost four decades the 47-year-old had lived as a man, but deep down knew she was meant to be a woman.

Summer first realised she was different at the age of four when she began to find joy in trying on women’s clothes and playing with makeup.

She confessed: “I used to steal my sister’s clothes and I remember always feeling really happy wearing them.

“Then, when I was a teenager, my best friend would dress me up and I’d sneak out dressed as a woman.

“Some people knew I wanted to be a woman but back then it was very difficult as nobody understood.”

With others finding her secret hard to accept, Summer fought her urges and threw herself into work before marrying another woman in her 20s.

But after a complicated divorce and years of battling depression, the compulsion to become a woman grew stronger.

“I was in a few relationships and I was always honest about who I was, but they kept telling me I had to dress as a woman in secret,” Summer recalled.

“I hid who I was just to please other people for such a long time. I was deeply depressed.

“When I first opened up the cafe in Glasgow, I struggled every day to survive but I was determined to make enough money for my operation.

“This was back in the 1980s when I left school so you had to have operations like these private back then.

“I tried to save up the money and hid in my world of cooking but I was never, ever happy.”

Although she never came out to friends and family as a transgender woman, she decided to secretly save cash for a sex change operation.

Summer was told by doctors that her transformation would cost £8,000 and, fed up of living her life in the wrong body, she was forced to give up her flat to live in the cafe she once owned.

She slept on her work’s sofa every night and worked seven days a week to try and make a living to save for her operation.

“I ended up having to live there, I had to choose between a flat or being myself. It was the hardest time of my life,” she said.

“I opened up a cafe in Glasgow but I made nothing from it. I was living day to day but I was determined to try and save so I could become me — Summer.

“For almost three years I lived my life in the cafe, seven days a week. When I eventually left that life it was difficult to adapt.”

Fed up of living a lie, Summer finally plucked up the courage to close down her cafe and start a new life.

At the age of 43, she bravely decided to become, in own her words, “the real me, Summer,” and leave her old life behind completely.

She started working as a psychic medium, a talent she has lived with from the age of five, and is now “happier than ever before.”

And she can’t wait to go through her sex reassignment operation, funded by the NHS, in Brighton next year so she can be in the body she was always supposed to be in.

“I’ve waited all my life for this,” Summer beamed. “I can’t wait to have a new body and feel completely confident one day.

“It’s going to be a long recovery process, and it’s scary, but this is what I’ve always wanted.

“I have a vision of me walking down the beach and smiling, feeling calm and happy, that’s the ultimate dream.”

Summer also praised former celebrity athlete, Bruce Jenner, for recently speaking so openly about her transition to become Caitlin Jenner.

She said: “I think it’s really brave of her to come out at the age of 65. She must have gone through hell hiding her true self for all that time.

“It’s about time we sent a positive message of the transgender community.

“Once I have my operation I hope to get into counselling and help other transgender people out there.”