We met Sarah at the Cardiff pride event; she is such an inspiration and we felt honoured that she agreed to support Transgender in Wales.
I was first aware that my internal perceived gender was different to how other people saw my gender at a very young age, one of my first memories was being really upset about having my hair cut because I saw myself as a girl and wanted to have long hair. Over the next 20 years or so I attempted to prove to myself that I could live as male but eventually coming to the realisation that transitioning was the only option for me.
I first talked about being trans to a close friend of mine called Andrew, about four years ago. I was at a Halloween fancy dress party which also happened to be the first time I had ever been out dressed as female in public and I had written out what I wanted to say in a series of text messages and after a bit of dutch courage I sat him down and read them out to him. It made me laugh when his first words were "I know, why has it taken you so long?"
I chose Swansea because I had little choice. I had exhausted all the options in Jersey, where I am originally from, to transition and eventually met someone on the internet who I hit it off with and he invited me over so I could transition.
I received really good help from the medical profession after moving to Swansea, one of my first ports of call was getting a GP and asking for help. Within 6 weeks I had my first appointment with a psychiatrist and about 3 months later I had a letter saying the PCT had approved the funding to see Charing Cross. At this point I had to move to Brighton so I have to start the process over again.
Being asked to be a part of My Transsexual Summer has totally changed my life, first off not many people, even quite a few close friends didn't know about my intention to transition so being part of the show meant I could come out to everyone at once... Now people come up to me in the street and thank me for taking part, ask how I'm doing and generally for a chat.
