We’re not these aliens coming, we’ve always been here...it’s just we couldn’t be ourselves
Dylan, 22, hopes documentary series will ‘inspire compassion’
A 22-YEAR-OLD who came out as transgender six years ago says she hopes sharing her story will help “open people’s eyes”.
Dylan Clarke is one of several young people laying emotions bare as they embark on their sex change journey in RTE documentary series My Trans Life.
The brave participants agreed to be filmed over two years to show how they deal with huge milestones including hormone treatment and irreversible surgery.
Dylan told the Irish Sunday Mirror: “Even people who are fully supportive don’t fully get it. Some see trans people as a boy who turned into a girl, instead of a girl who was born a boy.
“I hope this opens people’s eyes to have compassion. A lot of trans people are constantly defending themselves online and it can seem aggressive.
VULNERABLE
“Here you see trans people being vulnerable. We’re not these foreign alien bodies… we’ve always been here, we just couldn’t fully be ourselves.”
Dylan, who grew up in Coolock in North Dublin, realised from an early age something was different.
She said: “I’ve always played with girls’ toys. When I went to the shop I’d pick up a Barbie. But because other people said it was wrong I started to push it down from the age of four or five.
“In 2012 or 2013 I realised I was in some way trans as I started wearing girls’ clothes and I wanted to be more feminine and have a female body.”
Her supportive mother Nicola said the physical change from boy to girl aged 18 “was like I lost my son and then all of a sudden I had a daughter”.
Dylan revealed: “It was hard for her calling me ‘she’ – she’d come between calling me ‘he’ and ‘she’.
“She wanted me to change my name, wanted a clear border between me and who had been her son. I had to explain there is no border.”
The RTE show follows Dylan from her diagnosis of gender dysphoria (gender identity disorder) to preparing to start her transition to realign.
But having recently found love with boyfriend Jack she starts to have second thoughts due to the loss of libido caused by hormone blockers.
Outlining the reality Professor Donal O’shea revealed: “The first phase of hormone treatment is a blocker of your own testosterone and that switches off libido. “The job of hormonal and medical management of gender dysphoria is chemical castration. That’s what the blockers do.
“Your testosterone is zero within two months, erections disappear, you stop making sperm and your sex drive goes off a cliff edge.
“When you start oestrogen there may be some restoration in sex drive to female levels but nothing compared to male levels.”
He added: “You’d be much healthier from a physical point of view if you could cope with your androgynous self not to go down the route of hormones and surgery.
“If there are any doubts now is the time to put the brakes on.” Making a difficult decision, Dylan said: “I’d have to say no as I couldn’t imagine a life without a sex life.
“You can learn to love your body which I am doing. I’m glad I learned to be trans without changing myself.”
She added she can understand the misconception transitioning is about “anyone and everyone just changing to go with a trend”. But she said: “I think it’s very hard to tell the lengths people will go to to feel comfortable in their body.
“People look at the likes of Pete Burns going to extremes and associate the transgender community with people who get addicted to changing themselves.
“But I think for sensible people and people who know transgender people,
It was hard for my mum to use ‘she’, she’d lost a son and got a daughter
DYLAN CLARKE
ON MY TRANS LIFE
opinions are changing. I’ve always been a confident person and life is good – life is as good as you make it.
“I haven’t got any more or less stick for who I am as a boy or a girl.”
The documentary shows Leaving Cert student Luke O’reilly Kane as he begins the transition to male.
Wearing a binder for 12 hours a day to flatten his breasts caused curvature of the spine and he is recommended for surgery.
He revealed: “I was embarrassed for what puberty did to my body and I didn’t feel comfortable with people knowing I was a girl.”
The RTE show also follows Nicky Manning who suffered anxiety and depression before beginning the transition to male in 2014.
After a hysterectomy and a double mastectomy the 22-year-old Dubliner, who identified as a lesbian before realising he was trans, said he is “nearly there”. He added: “I knew I’d to start transitioning. It was a matter of if I don’t I won’t be here.” In the show he is wheeled to theatre for liposuction surgery to give him a male chest.
An emotional Nicky added: “For me the hardest part is finding out who I am, just getting there. I’m nearly there. I only get one life, I might as well live it for myself.
“I’m becoming the person I always knew I could be. It’s powerful. It’s like, ‘Wow, you’re awake’.”
■ My Trans Life is on RTE Two on Thursday at 9.30pm.
Becoming who you knew you could be is like, ‘Wow, I’m awake’ NICKY MANNING ON MY TRANS LIFE