I met Kelly-Lee about three years ago when I was still living as Jon. I’d just come out of an abusive relationship and was not feeling great about my life.
Everything was different with Kelly-Lee immediately. She is very open minded and accepting and I just felt like I could be myself with her, even though I wasn’t 100% sure who that was.
After three months together I asked her to marry me, and she said yes. When we’d been together for about year Kelly-Lee went away for the weekend and I could no longer hide the feelings that had been welling up inside me. I sent her a text message and told her that I just wanted to feel pretty and wear a dress. She responded “ok, we’ll get you a dress.”
When Kel came home she bought a couple of dresses for me to wear, and she gently questioned me about whether I felt this was a comfort thing, or was it a transsexual thing?
At first I thought it was just a comfort thing. I loved wearing a dress, and felt very natural in women’s clothes but after about a week it bought up all of this stuff for me.
I remembered how when I was 13 I read an article about a policeman in the UK that had transitioned from male to female and I remember thinking that I didn’t realise that someone could do that.
I remember how sad I was that I would never be able to do that.
I remembered going to visit my grandparents around the same time and I’d lock myself in the bathroom and experiment with her makeup. I pushed all of these feelings down through my teens because I knew that no one around me would understand, I was bullied enough as it was.
I was a bookish kid. I was a bit of an outsider. I was bullied for being different; tall with sticky out ears and NHS glasses.
Puberty was depressing, and I just remember wishing I could not be who I was.
It’s not like I consciously knew I was in the wrong body, but I always felt like something wasn’t right. It was hormones, it was not fitting in, it was feeling different. It was a nasty mess of soup where all of these feelings were integral and affected each other.
I got married a week after my 25th birthday to a lovely woman. I buried all my feelings and just got on with being the person that everyone expected me to be. I am attracted to women, so playing heterosexual happy families wasn’t hard for me until suddenly it was.
I realised that I had kinks and sexuality issues rising that I couldn’t discuss with my wife so we broke up.
It was different with Kelly-Lee, though. I felt like I could tell her anything. I told her I wanted to transition into my true self. I was a woman, and I couldn’t deny it any longer. I could not live as Jon for another moment, I was Jody.
Kelly-Lee went to bed for two weeks and cried. She was mourning the loss of Jon. The picture she had of our lives together was now different.
Within weeks, I had come out completely. I wasn’t working at the time so there was nothing holding me back from completely transitioning.
I threw away all of my old clothes and I replaced it with dresses and tights, and told my friends that I was now living as Jody. I just got on with it, and I felt good about finally being my true self.
Three months after I came out Kel had a real bee in her bonnet about going to a shop across town where they were serving free tea.
She seemed edgy and distracted. She made me look away at something and when I turned back she was down on her bent knee, with a ring identical to the one I proposed to her with, and she asked me to marry her.
I knew then that I was with the most amazing woman in the world who loved me and accepted me for who I was.
Since I started hormone therapy I’m less of an arsehole. I used to be arrogant, but now I’m more gentle and nurturing. I don’t know if it’s the hormones or now I just feel happier within myself.
Maybe a bit of both.
Although I think it I will always be transitioning in a way, I also feel like now I have made it. I look like a woman, I’m accepted as a woman, and I finally feel like I am the person I always wished I could be.
People often tell trans people that they are brave but I disagree. It’s not brave at all, it’s just being true to yourself.
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