A 68-year-old retired shearer and rodeo champ hopes to have a sex-change operation on the public purse.

Christchurch pensioner Annabell Victoria Quor, born Ernest Quor, has been on hormone treatment for two years, wears women's clothes, and carries a driver's licence sporting her new name and a face framed by long hair and dangly white earrings.

All the tall former karate champion now wants is to have her "what-nots" removed so she can be legally recognised as a woman.

"I've always hated what I had down yonder," Ms Quor said. "At school concerts I won prizes for dressing up as a schoolgirl and I felt good doing it but I didn't understand it. Thinking back, it all worked in."

Proud wife Margaret Quor bustled around fishing out documents, making phone calls, finishing Ms Quor's sentences.

"I've got used to it," she said when asked about the dramatic change in her husband of nearly 45 years.

The couple, who have three grown children, will celebrate their wedding anniversary next month.

They have become agitated by apparent delays in getting a specialist's appointment despite having the okay from a psychiatrist. Ms Quor fears she will be refused an operation because of her age.

Photographs in their small flat include one of a bare-chested Ernest Quor astride a horse from his days as a cowboy. He grew up in Victoria, and eventually took to shearing, mustering and rodeos.

- NZPA