I’m writing this article because I wanted to share my story, but I haven’t had the best experiences, so I decided to write it anonymously – I hope you will understand by the time you have read it. For the sake of this article, lets call me Tom. I’m 20 years old, and I’ve been confused about my sexuality since I was about 12 years old.

I had a relatively normal upbringing, and everything was as you would expect until around year 6 at school, where I got in with the wrong crowd at school. It was at this point that I thought I might like boys, as I had had a couple of crushes on a few boys at school, but my gang of friends was REALLY homophobic so I never spoke to anyone about it. Instead, I got a girlfriend, but when I was with her, one of the boys in my group had an older friend who forced himself on me. I didn’t say anything because I was too confused and ashamed – I didn’t know if anyone would believe me, or if they did, whether I wanted anyone to know about my sexuality. This was my first ever experience, and it wasn’t a good one, so I suffered with mood swings, depression and anxiety for a long time afterwards.

When I was going through school after that, the first proper crush I had on a boy was when I was in year 9 – his name was Adam. We were friends, and I really liked him, but he only saw me as a friend. I knew it wasn’t reciprocal so I never said anything to him. It made things hard when we were friends, but my feelings did go away after I met Lucas – my first proper boyfriend.

My friends set me up with Lucas – I met him outside school one day, and I was so happy when I learnt he was gay! We were the same age and had a lot of the same interests – we both liked dressing up in drag, and make-up and nails etc so I really felt like I could be myself with him – I felt safe for the first time ever, and I felt like I could be the REAL, FULL me. I didn’t have to force it like I had with girls in the past, and our relationship lasted about a year.

Then in year 11 I had a few other casual boyfriends – but nothing serious. But I wasn’t interested in girls at all. Then I had another proper boyfriend, but he was quite a ‘straight gay’ because he hated me doing things like dressing up in drag and painting my nails, so it didn’t last long because I felt like I couldn’t really relax and be me. I guess this was the first time I realised that people can be different kinds of gay – not everyone feels things the same.

Even though I’d had a few different boyfriends by this point I had always kept it from my family. I just knew they wouldn’t approve, so I ended up with another girlfriend in College who didn’t know anything about that side of me, and it made me so unhappy I got into drugs and had behavioural issues so got kicked out of College. I just felt like I was being forced to fit into a life that wasn’t me and it made me so desperately unhappy, but I didn’t know how to change it. Many of the people I thought were my friends ended up bullying me and making fun of my sexuality.

I would hook up with guys in secret when I had a girlfriend, and dress up in drag when nobody was around. When I was dressed up as a woman it just made me feel so much more confident and like myself. I’d always liked dressing up as a woman, using every non-school uniform day or fancy dress party as an excuse to dress up and put on a full face of make-up, so it got me thinking that maybe I wasn’t just gay – I was starting to feel like I was actually born in the wrong body.

I was still having behavioural issues with mood swings, depression and anxiety so my parents got me some mental health support from a Counsellor. This is when I told her how I felt, and now we are working through the process to look into whether I might be suitable for a full-on gender change. I have learnt to understand myself properly – I originally thought I was gay, then I thought I was bi-sexual, but now I actually think I’m Pan-Sexual, which means that I don’t really see gender – I just like someone for who they are, regardless of their gender. And feeling like I was born in the wrong body is called Gender Dysphoria.

On one hand, the thought of gender reassignment really excites me – like I would finally get to be me. But on the other hand, it terrifies me, because I know my family wouldn’t be happy. I recently told my cousin I was gay, and he said I want a real member of the family if I was, and when I did try to tell my dad, he refused to speak to me for a few days and then pretended like it didn’t happen. My mum was ace though. When I just blurted out I had a boyfriend I just shrugged and said she always knew.

I’m still going through my phase of self-discovery – learning about myself and who I really am. I’m still worried about people’s reactions, but most people are slowly starting to come around when they get over the initial shock. I’ve now got more Transsexual friends, and that has really helped because I realise that I’m not the only person who is different, and that its cool to be different.

So if I have any advice for people who might be considering their sexuality it would be this:

1)Don’t act like someone you aren’t – this makes you start to believe that you are the one in the wrong, not the people who are too intolerant to accept you as you are.

2)Talk to people about your thoughts and feelings as early as possible – I wish I came out earlier as its been so much easier with people to support me that when everything was just whirring round in my head.

3)F*ck what others think – it’s your life, and your choices will always impact more on you than they will on them, so stand PROUD and be who you really are.