Fred McConnell
Monday 30 June 2014 18.08 BST
Without wishing to state the obvious, I am male. I say this because, less obviously, I am also transgender. Being assigned female at birth in 1986 has been a consistent pain in the arse for me, both figuratively and literally, since I started hormone shots.
I realised I was trans in 2010. I was 23. In truth, I was realising again, since I'd known with innocent certainty throughout childhood. When puberty hit, I caught on that my gender non-conformity was becoming far from cute, so I stopped talking about it. I managed to stop thinking about it too; a textbook bottling of unwanted thoughts. My tomboy friends did "grow out of it". My male friends matured too, but I refused to engage with the inner voice that envied their facial hair and deepening voices. I lost touch with the truth about my identity because it was terrifying and, I thought, impossible to fix.
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/30/trans-top-surgery-changed-my-life
