A transgender journey: part one Juliet Jacques was born a boy, but always knew

[Shana A]

A transgender journey: part one

Juliet Jacques was born a boy, but always knew that something wasn't quite right. In the first of a series of columns charting her gender reassignment process, she describes how she gradually came to terms with her true identity

    * Juliet Jacques
    * guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 2 June 2010 11.14 BST
   
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jun/02/transgender-journey

I decided my name should be Juliet when I was 10. It took a further 17 years to let it rise from the back of my mind, where I had swiftly buried it, and become my identity. Don't ask my "real" name: it's not polite.

Changing my name was easy - a deed poll costs about £30. Changing my body is far harder. In Britain, there are two gender reassignment routes: expensive (private) or slow (NHS). Having declined the terms by which I could raise £30,000 for private treatment, I've chosen slow - which some people feel shouldn't exist. Without it, though, I'd face a lifetime in a body I loathe, being asked to meet social expectations which feel alien to me, creating mental health problems that would require (state-funded) treatment for years, even decades.