Andrew Guy Transgender man Andy finds love
Andy is finally the man he wanted to be – and he’s found love! writes BELINDA WANIS
Andrew Guy and his wife Jane Grimley look like any couple, but their love story is far from ordinary. Not only did Andy, who was born a female, fight to become the man he is today, he has also had his new gender recognised under Australian law, allowing the pair to officially become husband and wife.
Andy, 36, has always been very open about his transition from
pretty blonde Anna to a man – accomplished, handsome and a campaigner for educating the public on issues affecting the transgender community.
Andy felt he was in the wrong body from an early age, and started talking to his mother about it when he was just four.
“I asked, ‘If you wanted to become a boy, could you do something about that?’ ” Andrew recalls. “She said, ‘ You can,’ and I was like, ‘Oh great, can we do that?’ But at the time it was brushed off as kids’ play.”
Andy hid behind his uniform at the all-girls school he attended in North Sydney and focused on his grades. After school, he did his best to outwardly live life as a woman, but by the time he’d reached his late 20s, his inability to truly be the person he wanted to be was making him miserable.
“I was getting quite depressed,” Andy says. But things changed when he met his now-wife Jane, and confided his desire to transition into a man.
“Her response was so accepting,” he says of his wife. “I went to talk to a counsellor, which was a scary experience – having to be real with myself.”
Despite the couple’s connection and Jane’s support, they parted ways and Andy moved overseas to officially begin the transition process.
“I was a stranger to most people. I chopped all my hair off and was able to explore looking different and acting differently,” he explains.
In October 2015 – four years and three US surgeries later – he and Jane, 35, reunited back in Australia and realised they still had feelings for each other. “I trusted Jane not to have any judgement of me as we’d been together before,” Andy says.
They were married on Valentine’s Day this year at the Sydney registry office, where Andy also legally changed his gender on his birth certificate.
“It was a low-key, private affair where we asked a couple of our close friends to be witnesses,” Andy says.
With same sex marriage not yet legal in Australia, Jane and Andy were able to marry because of the gender reassignment Andy had gone through, allowing him to be recognised legally as male.
“In NSW, doctors need to sign off on two gender affirmation surgeries to change your gender,” Andy explains. “These are usually hormone replacement therapy and top surgery, but I’ve done all the surgeries you can.”
It wasn’t easy, but Andy also decided to pursue phalloplasty surgery while in the US. “The actual technology is mind blowing,” Jane explains. “The vascularity, like connecting up veins and arteries to support a reconstructed penis, is amazing.”
Like Jane, Andy’s family have been very supportive of his change, even helping him pay for his final round of surgery.
However, his decision was initially difficult for his dad and brother to come to terms with – it was only a short time after they lost Andy’s mum, Nina, to breast cancer.
Now Andy and Jane are happily married, the couple are contemplating the next step – having children.
“I never wanted children before, but last year we talked about adopting or fostering,” Andy reveals.
They’re not ruling out having a child of their own either, and while Andy can’t contribute genetically, he says he’s ready for fatherhood. “We’ve been talking about getting a donor and having a child together naturally,” he says.
Whether they have their own children, foster or skip kids altogether, the most important thing is that Andy is now living his life authentically, and he and Jane have found in each other someone they can each love, trust and rely on.
“Andy is an incredibly strong person and I admire that a lot,” Jane says of her husband.
“The strength he had to have to be true to himself and how many hurdles he had to jump to get there is pretty impressive,” she says proudly.
As for Andy, he’s thrilled to have finally gotten his happily ever after. “It’s been surprisingly powerful and amazing at just how much love is there when you are true to yourself,” he says.
‘I was getting quite depressed… but Jane’s response was so accepting’