‘IT STARTED TO KNEW I SHOULD
PUBERTY is a difficult time for anyone – sudden growth spurts, spotty skin, embarrassing body hair – but for Alex Jones it was more difficult than most. Alex, who was born as a girl, was 14 when he started to feel like he had been born the wrong gender and struggled to come to terms with his identity.
“Obviously your body changes a lot during puberty,” said Alex, from Newport. “But it started to get me down, because I knew I should have been born male.”
Alex, now 18, started to think he might be transgender after speaking to a counsellor at school.
“They explained what the term transgender meant and something just clicked in my head,” he recalled.
“Looking back, I was always more male as a kid. I was more interested in toys aimed at boys.”
Not knowing what to do next, Alex kept his feelings to himself for a year. He said he became depressed and started taking drugs and harming himself.
“Everything made me feel worse because I wasn’t who I was born to be,” he explained. “I knew that I had to transition to being male, but I didn’t know how to get there.”
Alex came out to his family and friends when he was 15 and said he started to suffer bullying at school as he studied for his GCSEs.
He said he was also harassed online and received one message saying: “You look like a girl and you sound like one.”
“To this day, it still makes me sick and angry,” he said. “I was told I wasn’t transgender and it was all for attention. I received threats to myself and my family.
“I shut myself away from everyone and everything in my life. I became more depressed, more sad and more alone than I have ever felt.”
Alex decided to start his process of transition when he was 15 and is now due to begin hormone therapy in August. He is hoping to have surgery a year later.
“It felt like the right time and since I started the transition, I have never looked back,” he said.
“I knew it would be difficult for my family, but I also knew it was the right thing for me and I had to do it.”
On a practical level, Alex changed his name and started encouraging people to refer to him as he instead of she.
“It takes time for people to get used to it, but I was pretty chilled,” he said. “Occasionally someone calls me she on purpose and that’s when I have to say something.