With my sexuality, I knew pretty young. I was raised in a household that was very open-minded. My Mum thought my sister was gay all of her teenage years. My sister had short hair and was quite artsy, so there was an assumption.
My Mum never thought that I might be, there was a bit of a problem when I came out at thirteen and said that I liked girls. My Dad has three other kids and I think he thought with five kids one’s bound to be a bit queer, so he’s been quite easy going.
Coming out trans* took a lot longer to work out. It wasn’t something I really knew about or realised you could possibly be. I told my Mum two years ago. At the time, she was like ‘no, that’s not ok’, it made me feel really guilty and because I already felt that feeling that I was a guy was a bad thing – that response made me hide it away.
I thought if I don’t have my parents’ support then transitioning is not something I can do. I decided to push it aside. My friend Belle was told that she only had a few weeks left, and for me that was a breaking point. I felt like I’d be living my whole life not being who I was – and here was someone who was really sick and really honest all the way to the end. I was sitting in the car with my Mum who was with me because I was so unhappy and she said ‘I don’t know what to do to help you’ and I was very tearful dramatic, ‘It’s because I’m a guy.’ I think then she saw how agonising everything was and that this is what I really wanted.
I told people through a variety of different ways, I told friends who were trans* or gender diverse first, I told Belle and she was so amazing about it. After a while I was kind of over telling people, it’s such a process, so I just posted on Facebook. I posted it the night MEN was playing, I posted it and then went out and met JD Samson, it’s one of the best nights of my life.
