Liz Roberts, 75, lives a quiet life in her Housing New Zealand house with her beloved affenpinscher dog, Penny, for company.
She makes her own tailored clothes, doesn't have a mobile phone and seems far removed from the "sex-change pioneer" she is known for.
"I don't see myself as a pioneer, or the mouthpiece for the transgender community. I just did what was right for me."
Born as Garry Roberts in 1943, Liz is New Zealand's first-ever surgical sex change and is coming to speak about her experiences at next month's Legacy Lunch in Tauranga, to raise money for Tauranga Breast Cancer Support Services.
She will be accompanied on stage by journalist Alison Mau, who chronicled Liz's dramatic journey from boyhood to womanhood in a book, First Lady.
Speaking to indulge from her Christchurch home, Liz remembers Tauranga as the place she sailed from in the 1960s from New Zealand to London - a city where she could openly dress as a woman in the evenings, and develop her passion for designing and making clothes.
Involved in the drag scene and meeting gay and transgender people, it was during her four years spent in London where Liz heard about sex change surgery but it had never been done in New Zealand before.
"Back then the word transgender wasn't even in the vocabulary. So I didn't know that what I felt was a normal thing. Growing up as a boy, all I wanted to be was a girl."
Bullied at school for being "a misfit", at home Liz said her father couldn't bear that she was "arty" and often hit her.
"My father loathed me and despised me."
Dispatched to a local boys' home at just 13, Liz said it was not sad, but "a relief".
"I was lucky I met someone there - a psychiatrist - who accepted me. I told him that when I grew up I wanted to be a woman and he didn't bat an eyelid."
Having met a showgirl in London, Pat Reid, who had been one of the first in London to have sex change surgery from man to woman, on returning to Christchurch, Liz was encouraged to explore options.
Christchurch plastic surgeon Tom Milliken accepted Liz as a client, although he had never done anything like it before, telling Liz he had only read about it in a magazine.
"I thought he meant a woman's mag, but at least it was the British Medical Journal. But he didn't do the whole thing, telling me that 'I won't play God', meaning he wouldn't give me a vagina."
She got her vagina in 1973 by surgeon Graham Liggins. It was a drawn out, painful procedure which she describes in the book with a sense of humour - "When Liggins asks if he can lower her urethra, she supposes it is like 'lowering a hem'." And she recalls a laugh-out-loud moment when the glass dilator she had to wear daily dropped into the ankle of her pantyhose.
I don't see myself as a pioneer, or the mouthpiece for the transgender community. I just did what was right for me.
Despite her wry sense of humour, having such surgery at the experimental phase was no laughing matter.
Liz says surgeon Peter Walker "fixed me with a beautiful job" in the 1990s in Auckland, as part of a newly established Gender Dysphoria clinic.
Walker continued doing sex change operations in New Zealand until his retirement in 2014. Now people seeking such surgery have to go overseas.
"In some ways it is easier for kids growing up, that transgender is much more understood, with all this discussion about toilets in schools and uniforms and the like, but in terms of surgery we have gone backwards, because people are having to go overseas, and that is if they can afford it. But also I don't think surgery itself is going to change your life in itself. You have to change your mindset."
Changing one's own mindset is easier than changing that of others.
Despite transgenderism and gender dysmorphia being more part of our vocabulary today, Liz says in other ways it hasn't changed from the people who used to bully her at school.
"When I go into hospital and people see your medical records, I have had bad experiences where people call me 'it'. Once a housing official referred to 'people like you'."
After the successful sex change surgery, Liz had a boyfriend for seven years who she never told about the operation.
"He chased me. There was no need to tell him. I am a woman."
When he found out he could not accept it.
"He came home and said 'I'm going to shoot you you bitch'."
Liz's friend English teacher Robert Gilbert, who wrote the foreword for her book, has known her since the 80s when they met in the theatre scene in New Zealand.
Robert, an award-winning playwright and director, has witnessed first-hand discrimination against Liz, as well other transgender friends.
I've seen the inner turmoil people go through and it is made so much worse by being ridiculed. Comments people make can really cause a lot of pain.
Robert, who completed his Masters about transgender representation in New Zealand theatre and recently wrote a play about transgenderism, Trans Tasmin, is deputy principal at Tauranga Boys' College, and is looking forward to catching up with his old friend when she visits Tauranga.
"Liz is a dear friend and it is great to see her at this forum of the lunch, raising money for breast cancer. I think her talk will make people think about the normative macho culture we have, that although it has changed a bit with more awareness, there is still a lot of prejudice and misunderstanding."
The book details Liz's colourful life in the theatre and entertainment scene, but she had less success in love - married twice, she now lives alone.
There is a sad scene in the book where she briefly looks after the baby of her first husband, who he had with another woman he had an affair with.
Does she regret not having been a mother? "I guess I learned not so show emotions from a young age. In public anyway. When I am by myself, yes I shed tears. Doesn't everyone? But am I sad? No. I am happy and grateful I had the opportunities I did. I had a good life, and I am still here."
the details WHAT: Legacy Lunch With Elizabeth Roberts and Alison Mau WHERE: Mills Reef Winery, 143 Moffat Rd, Bethlehem, Tauranga WHEN: Friday, August 4, 1pm-4pm TICKETS: General admission $200. Call (07)5713346 or online at breastcancerbop.org.nz/events.
Ticket price includes a tax-deductible donation to Breast Cancer Support Service Tauranga Trust to support them in their work supporting those with breast cancer in the Bay of Plenty. Tickets also include a three-course lunch with a glass of wine.
Alongside hearing from Liz about her life, there will be spot prizes and the opportunity to bid on an original artwork painted specially for the occasion by local artist Miriam Jones.
Liz and Alison's book, First Lady: From Boyhood to Womanhood: The Incredible Story of New Zealand's Sex-Change Pioneer Liz Roberts, will be available to purchase alongside a selection of jewellery, with profits going back to Breast Cancer Support Service.