England- 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’.”