A GRANDMOTHER believes she has been thrown out of a singles club because she is a transsexual.

Michelle, 53, was stunned when she received a letter from the club, Northern Link, informing her they were terminating her membership.

Karen Seddon, owner of the Horwich-based club confirmed the expulsion, but refused to say why Michelle was barred.

She said: "It wasn't because of Michelle's sexual orientation, but I'm not prepared to give a reason."

Michelle, a self-employed accountant, formerly of Lostock Hall, but now living in Chorley, was born a male, named Michael, in Blackpool.

She grew up as a boy, married, and fathered three children, a son, now aged 26, and two daughters, 24 and 18. She also has two grandchildren.

It was after getting divorced and undergoing the sex change operation that she joined Northern Link in March 2003.

"I informed the owner of what I was before I joined and she replied that this was a singles group, not a dating agency," said Michelle, now a tall, slim, ash blonde.

She says she was kicked out of Northern Link in November under the club's Rule Eight which allows it to terminate membership without giving a reason.

Another transsexual was also excluded at around the same time.

The club, which has 2,000 members, returned £20 of Michelle's £25 annual subscription, and the £14 she had paid for a Christmas meal with a note asking her not to attend.

Michelle, who lived in Lostock Hall for 16 years and had an office in Bamber Bridge, where she was also a school governor, says she rang to ask why she had been expelled, but no one would talk to her.

She said: "I doubt if I will ever go back to Northern Link even if they did re-admit me, but it might help somebody else in the future if I stand up to them now.

"I enjoyed the club, it gave me a social life," said Michelle, who now has a male friend whom she met through Northern Link.

Michelle said she had always felt like a female -- even growing up as a boy in Blackpool where she attended the town's grammar school. She underwent a £9,500 sex change operation in Brighton in 2001 after living full time as a female since December 1999.

And she still keeps in touch with her ex-wife following their divorce. "She was laughing that much she fell off a stool when I told her I was a woman." revealed Michelle. "It took her a few months before it finally sank in I was serious."

Michelle, a former parishioner at Our Lady and St Gerard's RC Church, Lourdes Avenue, Lostock Hall, added: "The public don't realise that transsexualism is a medical disease.

"It is not a state of mind, the public can't see this.

"What is needed is more education for the general public to show we are not two headed monsters, but normal human beings with normal aspirations and desires. Not something to be afraid of.

"I have been pushed around all my life and it is time to start fighting back."

She is now taking legal advice and is considering the possibility of launching a judicial review to challenge the decision by Northern Link.

She said: "As far as I'm aware I have not broken any of their rules."

Karen Seddon, 47, of Poulton-le-Fylde, said: "In my rules it states I have total discretion.

"I want a certain type of people. It is nothing to do with her sexual orientation at all."

She confirmed another transsexual had been barred in the same week, and that any other previous exclusions had taken place four months ago.

She added she had terminated "seven or eight" memberships in the last year "for all sorts of reasons".