‘There’s such a huge spectrum among the trans community and each of us is equally valid’
The hardest part about being gay.
“I knew I wasn’t gay. But I had no idea what – or who – I was. I really felt as if I was the only one in the world who felt like this.”
Nicole had friends – all of them girls. “They were towers of strength, but every single day I wished I didn’t have to get up and go to school because of the abuse.”
She developed coping mechanisms, joining after-school clubs every night so she didn’t have to was the abuse walk home amid a sea of threatening kids and, when the family moved from a gated house in a small village to a street where one of the bullies lived, she steered clear.
“He never, ever, knew I lived there – I always made sure I saw him first. I walked the dog in fullon stealth mode,” she says, making what sounds like an appalling situation sound almost funny.
Within the safety of home, Nicole’s sister, four years older, became a handy reference point – and donator of clothes. “My mum was fanatical about her hair and make-up, and there was an atmosphere in which
I could furtively experiment with the feminine.”
Leaving school for college and A levels helped. Nicole studied Drama, Performing Arts and English Literature at Collyer’s sixth-form college where one of her friends was HollyWilloughby.
“Suddenly, I was with very similar people. I had ‘permission’ to test the waters. It felt amazing,” she smiles. “Holly and I were friends.
She was part of the supportive group of girls who were brilliant about my situation. Outside, I wasn’t a girl. Inside, I was, but I was welcomed into the group without the batting of an eyelid. I was one of them.” Subsequently, she became more overt about her fashion choices. “I dabbled with dressing effeminately, grew my hair and wore heels. I never hid it from Mum, she knew what I was dressing like and didn’t care. As far as I was concerned, I was a woman in the wrong body, and was attracted to men, so I’d drive to Brighton, and jump into Revenge [the famous LGBT nightclub]. It was enormous fun.”
Finally, in her late 20s, she went to her GP and asked to be referred to a gender clinic. “She just said, ‘I wondered when we’d be having this conversation,’ and that was that,” she breezes.
After undergoing the required two-year period of living as a woman, as well as a raft of psychological tests, she had transitional surgery – “I call it my downstairs work” – in 2012, aged 32.
She’s had none of the other cosmetic surgical work – facial feminisation and breast construction – sometimes undertaken by trans women. “I grew breasts with the help of hormones and, as for my Adam’s apple, well – Sandra Bullock’s is bigger,” she laughs.
NEITHER did she opt for voice coaching, to help develop a more feminine sound. “It seemed like I’d be putting on an act, and I’d hate for Mum not to recognise me over the phone.”
Nicole is unapologetic about the attention her looks get. “I cherish the beauty I have because it took so long to get it. I went years without having the body I wanted, and I want to show it off,” she says, adding how happy she was to be catcalled as she walked to the post office recently with her dog.
“I’d been feeling a bit rubbish, but suddenly, all was well with the world,” she laughs. I put it to her that some women wouldn’t agree with her. “Oh, come on!” she groans. “I think everyone needs to lighten up.” Since transitioning, Nicole’s acting career has seen her as a trans character in TV shows such as Silent Witness, Borderline and the adult comedy Catastrophe.
She wants more trans people appearing in mainstream TV and film. “There are plenty of roles for all kinds of women characters who aren’t mothers or obviously female from birth, where it wouldn’t matter if that character was trans, just as it wouldn’t if the character was in a wheelchair,” she reasons. But she’s a little ambivalent about being labelled a trans activist. “I’ve only just felt comfortable calling myself transgender,” she says. “I used to feel that, because I’d transitioned, that journey was over. I was a woman. End of.” But she says meeting trans people with a huge variety of stories – positive or otherwise – has made her realise the importance of telling hers.
“There’s such a huge spectrum among the trans community, and each of us is equally valid.
“I can’t speak for everyone, but somewhere out there, there’s a young person who’s feeling the way I did, and maybe they don’t have the support I did. I’d be honoured to fight their corner.”