Living.Scotsman.com – as told by Sally Raikes
At primary school, I didn’t mind too much being a girl. Pre-puberty, the only difference between a male and female body is whether you stand up or sit down to pee, so it was tolerable. There were other tomboys like me, so I didn’t feel particularly strange.
I wasn’t under any illusions that it wasn’t going to happen, but when my body started to go through puberty I felt betrayed. Looking in the mirror, the person looking back seemed less and less like me.
Everyone said I’d grow to like being female and I wanted to, but it didn’t happen. I still self-identified as male just as I always had. I buried my head in my school books so I wouldn’t have to socialise and pretty much lived my teenage years in a pair of school trousers, a white shirt and a baggy jumper. I tried not to think about my appearance – it was too distressing. When I interacted with people, the dynamic was wrong – they’d be seeing one thing, but I’d think I was projecting something else.