After 29 years, I finally feel comfortable looking in the mirror after transitioning to be a man

‘You’re so different now,’ she commented. ‘You just seemed so… sad in school.’

I paused and thought back to my teenage self. She was right – in more ways than one. Yes, I had been sad back in school. And I couldn’t have been more different. I was now a completely new person. Quite literally.

A beautiful – and rather sexy, I have to add – butterfly having emerged from their cocoon, I liked to say.  

I was born a girl – Samantha – and presented that way for the first part of my life. I was raised by my mum and didn’t have the easiest childhood.

Yet, there was something else. Something I could never quite put my finger on. I just didn’t feel comfortable with myself. I couldn’t get my style right, or my hair. And I hated it when I went through puberty and developed boobs and hips.

‘I want a beard,’ I announced to Mum one day as a child. ‘I think it would look cool.’

I knew some lovely people, had friends, even boyfriends. But looking back, I wasn’t as bonded to them as I could have been. It wasn’t a problem with them. It was me.

I went to university to study forensic anthropology and it was then I realised – and accepted – I was more attracted to women than men.

I embarked on my first relationships with females, but even then, I joked about wanting a penis, to be a man. Back then, it went no further than joking. It couldn’t. Because of course, the women I was in relationships with were lesbians – they wanted to be with a woman. Also, at that point, I didn’t fully understand transitioning. 

Then, in January 2019, after being single for five months, I went on Tinder and met Ashleigh. She was totally fit – I couldn’t believe it when she swiped right on me.

When we met – going out for a Chinese meal, playing pool, then talking until 3am – she turned out to be the most intelligent, caring, warm human being I’d ever met. I was even more convinced she was out of my league.

Source of data and images: metro