I’ve felt I was a guy since the age of around 11 (that’s when I found out what transgender was). I found out through Big Brother the year a transgender man won. I kept my feelings a secret for a good 2 years before I finally had to tell someone.

“I couldn’t live like I was any more”

I went to school one day (I was year 9), I started crying at my teacher and eventually told her how I was feeling about myself and how I couldn’t live like I was anymore after she said she would get my parents in if I didn’t tell her what was wrong. She said that I had to go see my head of year about it and took me to see her. She was nice about it but said I had a choice. I had a week to tell my parents or she was going to tell them for me that day (I think that was a horrible way to do it myself but there we go). So, she rang my dad and told him to come to the school. I was sat in a room waiting for him to turn up. When he got there my teacher sat him down and said basically your child feels they’re in the wrong gender and wants to transition into a man. He looked at me, laughed and made a joke. Obviously, this made me cry even more.

For about a year he thought it was a phase and told me I’ll grow out of it. They let me have the rest of the day off school and I went home and went to sleep. When I woke up my mum was home from work and came and said to me why didn’t you tell me about this I love you no matter what you “decide” to do with your life we hugged and it made me feel a bit better about the whole situation.

“I’m 2 years on T and I’ve just had my top surgery. Life gets better”

A couple of months later I came out to my friends at school. Everyone in a friends group smoked so we all use to go after school for a fag in a particular place so I told them to meet me there. Once I got there we all rolled fags and I said basically I’m trans and I want you all to start using he and him pronouns and call me Ollie/Oliver. The majority of my friends were fine with this and tried their best. From that moment forward I cut the 1 or 2 people who didn’t agree out my life but I’m still best friends with some of them to this day and they all say they could never see me as a “girl” even when I was one. My mum told the rest of my family about me transitioning and they all were fine about it apart from my grandad (he’s a waste of space anyway so I don’t really care). Both my parents and family are very supportive now. I’m 2 years on T and I’ve just had my top surgery. Life gets better.