Trans Mission

As kids, nobody cared about who you were or what you wore.

I guess we should start at the beginning. I was born on November 2,1995 in the south of England. The doctors in the hospital took one look at my genitals and slapped an F on my birth certificate. F for female, not fail—though that would actually have been kind of appropriate given the present circumstances.

My earliest memories are of watching my dad play Nintendo 64 in our small apartment, waiting for my mum to get home from work. My dad introduced me to video games at a really young age with Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog, until eventually I graduated to Grand Theft Auto when I was about nine. It’s probably not ideal for a nine-year-old to play games where they murder people, but luckily I don’t think I picked up on the more mature references in the game. Unless it was a scary game that would keep me up at night, I was usually allowed to play it.

At the time I was too young to notice, but the area I lived in until I was five was not a nice place. I can’t imagine the kind of person I’d be today if I had grown up there. Would I ever have had the confidence to transition?

It’s crazy to even think about, but where you grow up and other external influences really do play a role in how you turn out. Luckily, my parents moved us to a little rural village practically in the middle of nowhere. The neighborhood was safer, the house was bigger, and we even had our own garden. The best part was that the village was small, so most of my friends lived on the same street.

The closeness of village life meant that I’d always be on my bike with my friends or getting in trouble with them somewhere. I miss the days spent at the local park with my friends, running up and down the skate ramp, faster and faster until we were high enough to pull ourselves up to the top. We’d spend hours on that rickety old thing, talking about who knows what, thinking we were the shit. Sometimes we might find ourselves on the swings eating strawberry licorice, listening to the greatest hits 2006 had to offer while seeing who could jump off the highest.

Nothing particularly interesting ever happened in my little village, so when it did, you remembered it forever.

Like that one time my friend launched off the swing too high and sprained her ankle, or when a crappy tinfoil barbecue caught fire in the park after being stuffed behind a bench. That was a great day—we ended up in the front seats of a fire engine wearing big yellow helmets. Everything was so easy back then. As kids, nobody cared about who you were or what you wore.

From the moment I had the capacity to make my own decisions, I generally steered clear of anything pink, frilly, or sparkly. This took my grandparents far too long to realize, and I learned all about faking gratitude at Christmas pretty early on! However, picking out clothes was never really a big deal, and as a kid I’d wear stuff from both the boys’ and girls’ sections. I wouldn’t have been caught dead in a dress unless I had to, and I can only remember two occasions when I did: one time at my aunt’s wedding when I was seven… and at a school dance.

The dance was to celebrate graduating middle school when I was thirteen. I spent days searching in shops until I found the most boring long black dress I could. (Even thinking about it makes me cringe.) Trust me, a dress wasn’t my first choice—if I could have, I would have thrown on pants and a shirt. It was no secret that I was a massive tomboy, and the thought of everyone gawking at me because I wasn’t in my typical sweatpants-and-T-shirt ensemble was terrifying. But my parents were sure that if I did turn up in pants, I would get bullied. I felt so defeated knowing that people would have something to say no matter what I wore. At least by wearing the stupid dress, I’d make my parents happy.

On the night of the dance, I was literally pinned against the bathroom wall by my mum, who was desperately trying to put makeup on my face.

At first I let her do it out of curiosity—I’d never put makeup on before, and maybe I’d like it? NOPE. I didn’t even have to look at myself in a mirror to know that it made me feel so wrong. All I could think about was the weight of the makeup on my lips and the dark circles around my eyes. When I did finally look in the mirror, I saw my long hair and its signature part down the middle, but for once instead of a ponytail, it was awkwardly draped over my bony shoulders. In my opinion, most thirteen-year-olds who try to put on makeup look like three-foot-tall middle-aged women, and I was no different. I was a pale, gaunt figure with spiderlike mascara and brown lipstick: hot.

I felt confused and angry. I wasn’t angry at my mum for making me try it, but angry at myself for not enjoying getting dressed up, like I felt I was supposed to. Instead, I felt completely repulsed by my reflection, and I ran downstairs to scrub the mess off my face. I hopped into my dad’s car and was driven to the “dance.” I use the word lightly. In reality it was a dimly lit hall with a crappy DJ, a handful of jelly beans on each table, and teachers serving squash, a sugary fruit juice.

Apart from that night, my parents were really supportive of my fashion choices when I was growing up, as long as I was happy. They didn’t give in without trying, though. The last time we ever clashed on this was when I was picking out an outfit for my last day at school, when I was sixteen. The tradition for anyone on their last day was to not wear their school uniform but still dress formally. By this point, I had come to terms with the fact that I was trans and was beginning to gain confidence at presenting as more masculine, so there was no way I was wearing “girls’ clothes.”

I’m sure my parents didn’t expect me to wear a dress, but I think they were hoping I’d opt for a button-up blouse and some girls’ pants or something. I had other ideas. Most of my wardrobe comprised of guys’ clothes, but I didn’t have anything formal. When shopping with my family one day, I stopped in the men’s aisle and starting browsing for a shirt and tie. My dad didn’t like that idea, but I stood by the fact that I wouldn’t want anything else and that it didn’t matter to anyone but me. We rarely got into arguments, but on that day something just clicked within me that said, This is it. Stop trying to hide who you are. Looking back at the pictures of that final school day is so great because you can see how genuinely happy I was. Everyone wants to be able to look back at their last school pictures, so I love that I have some that I don’t feel uncomfortable looking at.

Sorry, Dad. The argument was worth it.

It wasn’t just clothes; from as young as six, I was referred to as a tomboy by my friends, teachers, and parents. My very best friend was named James, and for years we were inseparable on the playground. People probably thought I had a crush on him, but he was just my best friend. In fact, for most of my childhood I only managed to have one female friend. I don’t think that was a purposeful decision, I just got along better with guys because of our similar interests. This had its downsides, though—some hobbies were gender-specific, like football or Scouts. I wanted to be in Scouts so bad; I remember being green with envy at all my friends coming into school after their camping trips with stories and jokes I couldn’t understand.

I guess to some people that seems like an obvious early sign that I wasn’t happy with my gender, but that’s a huge misconception. I don’t think I was even aware of a divide between “girl” and “boy” stuff when I was young: my parents thankfully let me pick whatever I wanted and didn’t make a big deal out of some things “only being for boys.”

I know some trans guys who grew up in environments where female gender roles were really harshly enforced. They’d be stuck with dresses, dolls, makeup, and pink everything. But guess what? They still ended up transitioning to male. These kinds of stories are hard for a lot of trans guys to admit I think, because they don’t want their childhoods to invalidate their identities, but they show that

gender identity is so deep in our core that no amount of conditioning will change it.

As much as I’d like my childhood to have been less clichéd, I can’t help the fact that I wore “boys’ clothes” and played with “boys’ toys.” I naturally went toward action figures, cars, Lego, and crafty stuff—although if I’m being completely honest, I have to admit that yes, Alex Bertie did have his fair share of Barbie dolls at one point.

The birth of my sister, Hollie, when I was six was a great yet very weird thing for me and everyone else in my family. Weird in the sense that Hollie grew up consistently being a “girly girl.” Seeing her so at ease with femininity and her body was hard to watch because we were brought up in the same way. This proves that it wasn’t how I was raised that led to me transitioning, but at the time it only added to my gender confusion. It was difficult for my mum too, as she’d never had to deal with anyone borrowing her makeup or clothes before—I was more interested in trying on my dad’s vests and shoes! Hollie and I have never really been inseparable like other “sisters” can be, and I’m not sure if that’s because of the large age gap between us or because of how different our interests are. I was never there to give her fashion advice or teach her how to use makeup—instead we wrestled and played video games.

Until I was about eleven, I didn’t have any concept of gender dysphoria and certainly had no idea what being transgender meant. But I think if I had been exposed to these terms earlier, I definitely would have identified with them. At that early stage I wasn’t analyzing my passing thoughts, like the envy I felt toward my male peers or why my interests were so different from those of other girls. Instead, I was just me. My only real concern in life was what I was going to watch on TV when I got home from school.

When I look back at my younger years, I’m pretty sure I was fairly content.

The pictures from when I was two years old are pretty funny, because in some I look like a little boy. There are pictures of me standing in my crib with short blond hair spiking out in every direction, and similar ones at the beach. Pictures of my childhood where I look more androgynous make me happy—not because I’m ashamed of any previous femininity, but because I feel like those images connect with who I am now. It’s easy to look back and feel like I missed out on a “male childhood,” but I’ve come to terms with the fact that it is what it is and at the time, I was happy.

I’ve seen stories online of kids coming to terms with their trans identities at really young ages, with the support of their parents, and I have mixed emotions about it. On one hand, it’s amazing that these kids (A) have support and (B) get to experience more of their lives identifying as their true selves. If I’d realized my identity early on, I could’ve gone on hormone blockers and stopped female puberty before it started, or felt more confident in school, sparing me from getting bullied relentlessly. But on the other hand, figuring it out sooner wouldn’t have made testosterone (T) or surgery happen sooner; those things have age restrictions and I couldn’t have started T until I was seventeen years old.

I don’t know what I would have preferred.

Discovering myself sooner would have meant I’d have been able to experience having a male childhood, as well as not needing chest surgery, thanks to hormone blockers. However, I still would’ve had to wait until I was seventeen to get hormones, so I would have spent way longer dealing with the dysphoria.

So maybe finding myself a little later in life was better for me. Although I missed out on some experiences, like my dad teaching me how to shave or going to Scouts, I was able to focus on being a happy, naive kid. Granted, I went through hell when I finally realized and eventually had to have a pretty invasive surgery to get rid of the “blessings” of female puberty… but still. I don’t think I could’ve dealt with that emotional pain as a child.

It’s actually pretty awkward talking about my childhood to people I meet now, especially if they don’t know I was assigned female at birth. There are certain things I have to leave out or vaguely gloss over, like how I never played rugby in school or that I took swimming classes with girls.

I think that’s one of the reasons I find it easier to come out as trans sooner rather than later to people I know I’m going to be spending a lot of time with. The last thing I want is to feel like I have to watch every word I say in case I out myself by accident, or end up lying about certain elements of my past to keep things a secret.

I was an introverted, socially awkward fashion disaster.

Like most people, the beginning of my teenage years was absolutely horrible. I was an introverted, socially awkward fashion disaster. Seriously: if I could go back in time to any moment, I’d go back to the time I bought some boxing shoes and set them on fire. They weren’t a good look, Baby Alex!