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Trading up One Red Paperclip style for plastic surgery

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• Miss TG 2005
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One Blonde Wig Cap to swap

Friday, 4 April 2008

Inspired by One Red Paperclip pioneer Kyle MacDonald, Sue Sheppard - owner of Lacies TV/TS/TG specialist store and herself a male to female transsexual, has decided to try her luck at trading up with a focus on the trans/fetish communities - and with her final aim being plastic surgery.

In case you don't know the paperclip story - MacDonald took a single red paperclip in March 2005 and began swapping it for things, the final swap being for a two story farmhouse by the middle of 2006. It took just 14 trades to get there: a fish-shaped pen, a hand-sculpted doorknob, a Coleman camp stove, a Honda generator, an "instant party", a Ski-doo snowmobile, a trip to Yahk, British Columbia, a cube van, a recording contract, a year's rent, one afternoon with Alice Cooper and a role in the film Donna on Demand, Kyle bagged his two story farmhouse. Inspiring indeed!

Sue Shepperd felt so too. "I was very moved by the fun idea of Kyle MacDonald. The journey was more important than the result and the resulting adventures led him to meet and know a bit about the interesting lives of many different people in Canada and northern USA. I thought it might be fun to do the same thing in the UK, but focus on the Transgender and Fetish community, the semi-hidden alternative-culture of Modern Twenty-First Century Britain. Who knows how many interesting lifestyles and life stories they may have to tell?"

And Miss Sheppard’s equivalent of a red paperclip? "My starting point is a single blonde wig cap and my aim is to trade up bigger and better to see as far I could go - maybe even as far as plastic surgery. I like to think I look good, but I know deep down I could benefit from such plastic surgery to enable me to blend smoothly into the wider, often ignorant, community."

So far the wig cap has enjoyed some interest with a possible swap for shampoo and conditioner and some online interest from an oil worker. As for the final hoped-for trade, it seems Sue has a fair way to go... but you never know!

To offer a swap for Sue’s single wig cap and to follow her quest check out www.oneblondewigcap.com