I’ve been living a lie says soldier, 90, who’s come out as a woman
HE fought for his country at the end of the Second World War and was happily married for 63 years.
But all the time Peter Davies was living a lie – he knew he really wanted to be a woman. Now, aged 90, the Army veteran has come out as transgender. After starting a course of hormones, he has become Patricia and has joined the WI.
Ms Davies says she has not ruled out having surgery to complete her transition. The retired industrial photographer says she had known all her life that she was a woman in a male body but lived in fear of how people would react.
It was not until she was 60 that Ms Davies confided in her wife, occasionally dressing as a woman with her help.
Her wife died in 2011 and last year Ms Davies finally found the courage to seek medical advice. Her NHS records were changed to ‘female’ and she was prescribed oestrogen. She began living as a woman and told her secret to neigh- bours in her village in Leicestershire.
‘It feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders,’ she said. ‘Everybody said, “Don’t worry, as long as you’re happy”.
‘I’ve known I was transgender since I was three years old. I knew a girl called Patricia and I decided I wanted to be known by that name but it didn’t stick.
‘I wanted to play with girls’ toys. I didn’t want toy soldiers. I wanted an ironing board. My mother seemed to go along with it. She didn’t say it was strange.’
Ms Davies was called up by the Army in April 1945 and served in the Far East, India, East Africa and Palestine.
Although she says she was not gay, she feared she would be classed as homosexual and jailed if she spoke of her desire to be a woman. ‘I had to keep my mouth shut,’ she said. ‘But it was all right overall. I was never totally unhappy.’ She married in 1948, a few months after being demobbed. She first became aware of transgender women through a 1970s television programme.
‘At that point I had never even heard the word. I looked it up and there it was and I knew I was transgender,’ she said. She was worried about telling doctors because she felt it would not be safe.
‘They thought they could make you better. They didn’t realise it was something that you could not cure.’
In 1987, Ms Davies, who has no children, explained her feelings to her wife, who bought her jewellery and dresses.
‘She was very sympathetic and helped me all the way but we agreed to keep it quiet. She would call me Patricia.’
She remained living as Peter after receiving abuse in the street but decided to change gender in 2015 after watching the BBC2 sitcom Boy Meets Girl, which featured a transgender character.
‘I felt an overwhelming desire that I wanted to break free,’ she said. ‘So I came out and I’ve not regretted it. I feel quite relieved, quite happy... being accepted as a woman. That has been something I’ve wanted all of my life.’
‘I have known since I was three years old’