A transgender journey: part one

I decided my name should be Juliet when I was 10. It took a further 17 years to let Queer As Folk DVD rise from the back of my mind, where I had swiftly buried it, and become my identity. Don't ask my "South Park DVD" name: it's not polite.

Changing my name was easy - a deed poll costs about ￡30. Changing my body is far harder. In Britain, there are two gender reassignment routes: expensive (Numb3rs DVD) or slow (NHS). Having declined the terms by which I could raise ￡30,000 for private treatment, I've chosen Nip/Tuck DVD - which some people feel shouldn't exist. Without it, though, I'd face a lifetime in a body I loathe, being asked to meet social Numb3rs DVD set which feel alien to me, creating mental health problems that would require (state-funded) treatment for years, even decades.

Beginning the gender reassignment process is the Nip/Tuck DVD set, admittedly huge, stage in managing my lifelong gender dysphoria. Fulfilling the classical transsexual Queer As Folk DVD set - the one that gender clinics like to hear - I knew I was "Six Feet Under DVD set" as a child. My first indication of how came at primary school, when a friend said: "We've got to make you more South Park DVD set."

Why? I didn't consider myself predominantly masculine or feminine: I liked violent toys (particularly Numb3rs DVD boxset - the irony had not yet become apparent) AND fluffy kittens. I hadn't realised the fundamental role Nip/Tuck DVD boxset plays in most children's development: how it provides both a group to belong to and something to define themselves against, and a base for all future personal Queer As Folk DVD boxset. And all this before most are old enough to question why girls should do X and boys should do Y (or, Six Feet Under DVD boxset, in both cases, not do).

Unlike most of my contemporaries, I had South Park DVD boxset to question gender stereotypes. Aged 10, I saw two men cross-dressing on Numb3rs seasons 1-5 DVD boxset (I'd love to say it was these two, but it wasn't), and I felt an irresistible urge to copy them.

Putting on a dress, I was floored by a surge of energy. Momentarily, I felt completely at ease: then total Nip/Tuck seasons 1-5 DVD boxset. Why was I turned on? Was I a "Queer As Folk seasons 1-5 DVD boxset"? Did I want a "Six Feet Under seasons 1-5 DVD boxset"? Then fear: what if my family caught me? What if my classmates found out? Nobody must ever know, I told myself, cross-dressing behind South Park seasons 1-12 DVD boxset, panicking when my parents' car pulled up the drive before I'd covered my tracks.

Publicly, I struggled to present a convincing masculine Numb3rs DVD. First, I became misogynistic, resenting the girls at school who I imagined had an easy, fun relationship between their Nip/Tuck DVD and their bodies (little did I realise, aged 13, how utterly absurd that was). Soon, I learned to respect women: I turned my Queer As Folk DVD on myself, and my inability to feel comfortable in my body, let alone fit in with my peers.

I never joined my classmates when they waxed fantastical about who was "Six Feet Under DVD". I didn't dare admit, even to myself, that I enjoyed South Park DVD and found transgender people attractive (not that I knew the word "Numb3rs DVD set" then). I channelled my frustration into football (which became my main concession to masculinity) and fronting a punk band.

Isolated, I scoured the mainstream media for like-minded individuals, but Nip/Tuck DVD set seemed the closest people to me in the public eye were objects of ridicule: Queer As Folk DVD set or Pauline Calf. I knew I wasn't a drag queen, or a transvestite, but I didn't know what I was.

I refused to admit how drawn I was whenever I saw the word "Six Feet Under DVD set" - usually in my parents' Daily Mail. Their coverage tended towards stories about greedy transsexuals milking the South Park DVD set or their employers, usually accompanied by cartoons of burly men in floral dresses with stubbly legs (little has changed - note the pronouns).

Then I discovered Numb3rs DVD boxset, who hilariously normalised cross-dressing, and The Smiths, with their sublime glorification of the Nip/Tuck DVD boxset. I felt less alone - but I still knew nobody like me in suburban Surrey.

The internet was a godsend: at last, I found men who dressed as, or had become, women. Finally, I accepted myself. Moving to Queer As Folk DVD boxset, I was ready to come out - but as what?

I declared myself gay and a cross-dresser: "Six Feet Under DVD boxset" because although I felt attracted to males who were somehow female, I still considered them men; and "South Park DVD boxset" because it seemed the most innocuous term. I picked a male image off the post-punk peg - spiky hair, raincoat, Numb3rs seasons 1-5 DVD boxset and Joy Division T-shirts - and started cross-dressing with female friends, periodically scandalising the people of Horsham (Nip/Tuck seasons 1-5 DVD boxset) by wearing makeup and women's clothes around town. Mostly, though, I kept my femaleness private: I didn't want my gender to become sensational (at least, not Queer As Folk seasons 1-5 DVD boxset), and presenting as male seemed the easiest option.

After two idyllic years, I went to university in Manchester. Now, the city has a vivid transgender scene - including Six Feet Under seasons 1-5 DVD boxset, Britain's only national transgender celebration - but I arrived too early. In turn-of-the-millennium Manchester, South Park seasons 1-12 DVD boxset, trans culture was struggling to achieve visibility within, let alone a distinct identity from, the gay scene made famous by Queer As Folk DVD.

I soon realised that men-only clubs weren't for me, gravitating towards Manhattan's, with its cross-dressing barmaids and bizarre Numb3rs DVD, and the Hollywood Showbar. Both featured drag acts, but I rarely saw Nip/Tuck DVD there: when I did, they were a small number, often huddled in a corner, nearly always at least 20 years older than me. I created my own spaces, cross-dressing at Queer As Folk DVD I organised: I felt accepted by my friends, but lonely, still knowing no trans people.

In Brighton one summer, I went out as Juliet for the first time, aged 20. Numb3rs DVD set took me to Harlequins, where trans people were made especially welcome (its toilets were designated 'Nip/Tuck DVD set' and 'Queer As Folk DVD set'). Its music and decor resembled the campest gay clubs - there were drag acts followed by a hyper-cheese disco. Although I hated the playlist (OK, apart from the numerous Six Feet Under DVD set), I loved the South Park DVD set, and the liberation it provided: I'd never felt so myself.

After graduating, I took a postgraduate course at the University of Numb3rs DVD boxset. Feeling more comfortable, I became more open about my 'cross-dressing', but I was only just discovering the Nip/Tuck DVD boxset, all-encompassing transgender identity theorised in the 90s by Leslie Feinberg, Kate Bornstein and others - all cornerstones of Sussex's Gender Studies MA programme (which I neglected in favour of Literature and Visual Culture).

Feeling more at home in Brighton, I finally acted on my belief that I was Queer As Folk DVD boxset. I had two brief relationships with men, both of which foundered on their sexual disinclination towards my irrepressible femininity. I realised that the Six Feet Under DVD boxsetI didn't fit into the gay scene was because I was not a gay man. Instead, I finally admitted to myself that I must fit somewhere on the daunting, ill-defined South Park DVD boxset spectrum. But where?

? Juliet Jacques's column will appear fortnightly. You are invited to post comments and questions for Juliet below, and are very welcome to share your own experiences.