How transitioning changed my life

For as long as I can remember I always knew that I should have been born a woman. As a child growing up I would go to bed and hope that I would wake up the next morning a girl and not a boy. I thought that this made me strange and I was the only person who was like this, as at this point there wasn’t any real visibility of trans people in the public eye.

Then when I was about 11 or 12 I was off school ill one day and at home on my own, then while looking through the channels on the television for something to entertain me I came across a talk show where they were discussing trans issues. I watched with interest as they talked about this, and I was relating to all that was said by the trans people who were talking about themselves.

It was at this point that I knew how I was feeling about myself had a name and that I wasn’t the only person in the world who felt this way. It gave me a sense of identity that I didn’t have a name for until that point, it felt liberating and exhilarating to have this new understanding about myself. Though that feeling didn’t last for long though while I knew this had a name I didn’t know how to deal with it.

The only representation though I could find on the telly from that point onwards came from US tv programs where the trans person was used to shock or for some sensational point. I couldn’t find any way…