I was born in a female body, anatomically and biologically female, but I never felt a girl from at least the age of three. I felt completely male.
I can see it in early photographs of me, dressed up as a cowboy with holsters and in the way I stood. I felt like a boy and all my friends were male. When I reached puberty it started to dawn on me that I was different. I didn’t feel comfortable in this body and knew there was something wrong about me when sexual feelings started. I fancied girls at school when I was nine and I knew that was wrong.
I went to a mixed school, then an all-girls school. On the plus side I was with lots of girls that I could fancy, but I hated it because I wanted to play with boys. I used to play football with my male friends at the mixed school, until the nuns banned me because they said it was too rough. I had all these messages when I was growing up that my behaviour was wrong.
At home my parents were pretty OK about me being a tomboy. I climbed trees, I was outdoors all the time, I was allowed to wear trousers. It only became painful and problematic when we were going to smart events where I was required to put on a dress. I threw tantrums – I felt a huge resistance to being feminised.
