Former Member of Jethro Tull Changes Sex
By Sherna Noah, Showbusiness Correspondent, PA News

A former member of the Seventies rock band Jethro Tull has
had a sex-change operation to become a woman, it was
revealed today.

David Palmer, the band's 66-year-old ex-keyboard player,
has swapped his trademark beard for long blonde hair and
make-up and is now called Dee. She is recording her
first solo album.

The former soldier in the Royal Horse Guards said that she
had "felt like this since the age of three" but that it
was only since the death of wife Margaret nine years ago
that the feelings were pursued.

She told the Daily Mirror: "I want to be judged on my
musical ability alone, and nothing else.

"It's not just wimps who want to do this. To be a girl,
it goes a lot deeper than that."

The guiding force behind Jethro Tull - Ian Anderson -
released a statement, saying he hoped fans would accept
Dee as a woman.

"I have known for the past two years of David Palmer's
intention to undergo gender-changing procedures and,
like many other people who have known David for three
decades as a bearded, pipe-smoking man's man, I found
it difficult to understand at first," he said.

"But I fully support his decision to undertake a new
life as a woman.

"To the many fans of Jethro Tull, I can only offer
that they should accept Dee Palmer for her new persona
and hope that they enjoy her musical activities in
the future."

He added: "The moment when the new Palmer identity was
revealed to me was when the then, still David, phoned
me to say 'Ian, there's something I need to get off
my increasingly ample chest'."