At the age of ninety Crisp came to the realisation that he was a trans woman rather than a gay man (although he already expressed this view in a television interview on 1971). In "The Last Word", published posthumously, Crisp said, "The only thing in my life I have wanted and didn't get was to be a woman. It will be my life's biggest regret. If the operation had been available and cheap when I was young, say when I was twenty-five or twenty-six, I would have jumped at the chance. My life would have been much simpler as a result".