When the government announced this week that it would not pass a bill banning conversion therapy for trans people, my response was mixed. At 18, I was prescribed testosterone by a private doctor so I could live as a man. The GP did not try to investigate the possible causes of my gender discomfort, such as my mental health problems or my difficulty adjusting socially. But even if they did, I could insist on moving on anyway. I thought I knew everything about myself – no one could tell me what to do.
I grew up in Lancashire, in a very android environment. My mom worked at night, that’s how my father took care of me. I also had two foster brothers, eight years older. I did not grow up with them, but we socialized as I grew up. After my parents divorced when I was 11, I spent a lot of time with my dad because my mom used to do three jobs. When I started school, I had a hard time making friends with other girls. I did not care about Groovy Chick, Barbie or Bratz – I just wanted to play football. There were many social rules in female friendships. Male friendships were much easier: we fell, we fought, we made, we forget the next day. High school was a very difficult time. When I was about 11 years old, I was convinced that I had to become a boy. My male friends all evolved differently from me, and that made me feel like I wanted to have what they had – they were stronger and more extroverted. On Tumblr and YouTube, I discovered trans people who claimed that some people who are destined to be men are mistakenly born women. I thought: this is the answer! I was uncomfortable with sex, I was destined to be born a man and there was no other reason not to date women. At the same time, I began to feel sexual attraction to girls, although I later realized that I was bisexual. At 12, I developed depression and anxiety. I did a few sessions with a counselor, who used words like “marginal”, “bipolar” and “manic”. My parents did not know what to do and the support from the school was minimal. It was my friend, whom I met in high school and who is also bisexual, who gave me the most support. To add to my grief, when I was 14 I was sexually abused by a stranger after he treated me on the internet. I told my parents, who reported it to the police. The perpetrator was eventually tried and taken to prison. It was an extremely traumatic period. I started experimenting with presenting my gender on both Instagram and Tumblr and changed my pronouns to he / she. I thought I had sex because the concept of transition was very scary. I was only 13 or 14 at this point. Some days I wanted to be girly, other days I wanted to dress like a man. In my last year at school, I remember telling my friend that I had to pick a side. Some days I would say that my pronouns are “he / she” and other times I would say, my pronouns are “she / he”. Before I went to college I swallowed my discomfort and for the next two years of my life I decided that I would be as girly as possible and I would be completely normal.