I mean, who doesn't love a good mid-life crisis? In just a few days, I turn 28 years old, but I'll also be celebrating my first birthday as myself as I accept and embrace my transgender identity, and live as the person I think I've kind-of-sort-of-always known myself to be.

This post is unapologetically long - it serves mostly as an act of self-indulgent journaling - to share a story I've only rarely been able to talk about, to answer questions I imagine that those around me might have as I post about all of this on the myriad of social media sites that need to be updated and to clear my mind as I move to the next, truest stage of my life.

But first, the headlines. My name is Morgan, and at the time of writing, I am a 27 year old recently hatched trans woman living in London.

Also, what follows is all going to be very much the perspective of someone transitioning from male to female. It's just the lens through which I view the world.

When did this all start?

Answering this question feels like the easiest place to start, but the answer isn't necessarily the simplest thing to explain because, in some ways, the answer is forever ago but in others, it's only been a year or so. And I appreciate if you're reading this and you're not of transgender experience, it'll be hard for some of this stuff to make any sense at all. But let me try to explain.

From a very young age, I was infatuated with the idea of being a girl. It didn't make sense to me that girls got to wear the prettier clothes or be more emotionally open. I didn't understand or subscribe to any masculine ideals. I always hated sports. I didn't want to participate in any form of rough and tumble. And - let's be clear. Girls can play sports. Boys can wear dresses (Harry Styles proved that in Vogue just this month). But it was more than that in a way that's quite hard to put your finger on, quite hard to explain.

Before I knew transition was even an option, before I knew the word transgender, I would constantly think to myself "Wouldn't it be so much better if I just turned into a girl?". I thought that everyone must surely have these thoughts because being a girl was clearly superior. Realising this wasn't something everyone thought was one of the biggest turning points in my acceptance of myself.

I've always felt a sense of incongruence with my body. This got worse and worse through puberty. I didn't like the changes that were happening to me. I experimented with changing how I looked. I even experimented with very occasional forays into women's clothing. I often felt guilty about this, or like it was something I should be ashamed of.

This even led to instances where I felt it necessary to construct complex scenarios which only further perpetuated that shame and more deeply entrenched my confusion - the less that's said about that, the better really.

On many occasions I tried to suppress all of this back down and try to be "normal". After all, the media I'd seen depicting transgender people almost invariably suggested abhorrence and shame, something to be afraid or wary of. And information was hard to come by, and often where it did exist overtly sexualised which served only to confuse me further.

I bedded down and plunged every fibre of my being into my career, with the confusion that occasionally surfaced being suppressed or obfuscated at will and remaining willfully defiant of the little voice inside my head that knew this path was ultimately inevitable.

Looking back, my struggle post-puberty is pretty clear to see. I struggled to form lasting interpersonal relationships. I gained a ridiculous amount of weight and ate compulsively, behaviours I am only now truly starting to be able to kick. I grew to consider myself professionally accomplished, but unattractive and unworthy of partners or relationships. Despite being well paid, I even made impulsive spending decisions to the point that I have flirted with debt.

The trouble with denying yourself your own reality is it's a little like putting a cap on a volcano or trying to dam a flooding river, I guess. Ultimately, once the genie is out of the bottle, it can only stay there for so long.

Discovering transition

The internet has a long history, so I know that I first properly researched what it would take to change gender - thanks to a collection of discarded email drafts and Google notes - about ten years ago. At the time, the barriers seemed insurmountable.

Wait lists even then were spiralling out of control at the UK's Gender Identity Clinics - horrendously underfunded in this country. To provide an (incredibly potted) genetics lesson, the act of medically transitioning for Male-to-Female transgender people requires:

• A steady supply of HRT, to increase the level of estrogen pumping through your veins and rid yourself of the mentally incompatible testosterone - resulting in changes to hair growth, fat distribution, the development of breasts, reduction in muscle mass and similar life-long effects

• Laser or electrolysis hair removal - Whilst HRT reduces hair growth on the body, it does precious little for the face - so courses of laser hair removal are required to get rid

• Vocal therapy - if you transition post-puberty, HRT cannot fix the damage that has been done to your voice - so either voice coaching and therapy or a tracheal shave (not typically available in the United Kingdom) is required

• Gender reassignment surgery - the construction of a neo-vagina from the existing biologically male material performed by a qualified surgeon - this also removes the need to block testosterone production, reducing side effects

• Breast augmentation surgery and other cosmetic procedures like facial feminisation surgery - where the HRT hasn't done a 'good' enough job

Some people choose not to do any of this - and it doesn't make them any less transgender.

A decade ago, when I first started looking at what it would actually take to make my body match my brain, the wait list just to speak to someone at a GIC was two years.

Then, before HRT was issued, a year of 'lived experience' would be required - this would mean living as a woman without any medical intervention - an unthinkable proposition that I felt could have led to me losing my job and career. There was an unknown wait for anything else. Hair removal, vocal therapy, breast augmentation and other cosmetic procedures would likely not be covered at all.

So, I did the only thing I could. Convince myself I wasn't transgender. Get back into my box. Occasionally explode out of it. Research some more. See the situation was the same or worse. Get back into the box again.

The turning point

A year or so ago, things started moving again. At this stage, I had repressed any acceptance that I was transgender deep, deep down inside. But last New Years Eve, I found myself in New York, attending Sleep No More presenting entirely female. This wasn't a 'slap on a costume store dress' affair - I had planned.

I had learned to walk in heels (though, it turns out not entirely well enough for a seven-hour masked immersive show and costume party), I had purchased shapewear, I had done my nails. I had even had my eyebrows shaped. I carefully choreographed the whole thing, got on a plane to New York and walked out of my hotel room into the unknown.

What happened that night was transformative. For the first time in a very long time outside of a professional context, I felt seen. Despite my (very) male voice and what was I guarantee you not a high-quality contour, I felt confident. I was able to talk to strangers. I interacted with the performers. I got a tarot card reading from one of them who gave me a new name.

I felt a sense of happiness and euphoria that I had never felt before. Everything felt right that night. Even when, at 2am, there were no taxis in the whole of Manhattan, and I had to walk (barefoot, the six-inch monsters I had foolishly selected in my hand) I felt invincible. This all seemed right. It all seemed perfect. I collapsed in the bed in my hotel room.

The next morning, I wiped the make-up off my face. I got dressed in my drudgy male clothes. I headed home, still too afraid to act, still trying to logic myself out of what I think I already knew. Fearful of what it would mean for work, what it would mean for my interpersonal relationships, afraid what my family would think.

I got back into my box. But I had booked a trip to return less than 10 weeks later. And I found myself back at Sleep No More, dressed in more modest footwear, the week before the pandemic that made the world stand still. I came home, slipped back into my reality and started to feel as if I was losing control.

Over the top

I had started frequenting trans subreddits on the regular, soaking up as much information as I could. The pandemic - whilst initially shocking - began to feel like an opportunity. Time away from the office meant time to get some therapy, start on HRT, take up voice therapy with minimal impact on my work. I didn't fear losing my job in the same way as I always had before. And frankly, I was at breaking point.

At this stage, not doing this wasn't an option anymore. After several therapy sessions, on the 5th of July, I disclosed my transgender identity to my GP.

The wait to see a gender identity clinic in the UK is now likely close to five years. Laser hair removal, vocal therapy, breast augmentation and cosmetic treatments are still not covered. The wait for gender reassignment surgery could be as many as eight or nine years.

Thankfully - in no small part because I spent the last decade diving headfirst into my career at the expense of all else and burrowing my head in the sand - I have relatively considerable means. Whilst I'm certainly not rich, I have been able to - partially with the help of family - fund my private diagnosis and treatment plan (approx. £500/year), my laser hair removal (£900) and my vocal therapy (£1,200).

I have also been incredibly lucky to have found Babylon GP at Hand who have been an incredible ally and entered into a shared care agreement to ensure I can still get NHS prescriptions and blood tests.

Gender reassignment surgery - on the other hand - costs about £25,000 to £30,000 privately - so unless a mysterious benefactor appears, or I find myself in a more progressive country (seemingly almost everywhere in the western world but here) - I will have to wait a while longer for that.

But for now, I have the medication I need, my medical transition is on-going (the full effects take years) and I now have the confidence to step out into the world as my true self for the first time.

A note on trans rights in the UK

My good fortune is not mirrored by all. I think it is abhorrent that wait lists in this country have been allowed to escalate to the level they have. Basic necessities like laser hair removal and vocal therapy are not routinely funded. It's really hard to get shared care. And the cost of private diagnosis can be cripplingly high.

These policies create a hostile environment for transgender people to live their lives safely, and petty and unnecessary arguments about hypothetical bathroom scenarios and almost entirely unfounded fears are being allowed to pollute discourse in this country around a minorities rights in a way that I cannot fully comprehend.

I am more than £3,000 in the hole just for the right to live as my true self. And I am one of the "lucky ones".

Trans women are women.Trans men are men.

To disagree with these simple statements of fact - to claim that the people of my community are predators or threats or that we should 'go and use the disabled toilet' - is in my mind no different to the hateful politics of segregation.

I hope and believe that we can all be better and more compassionate than this. I hope that we can recognise that biology is not an untraversable line around which identity cannot transcend. I hope that on this issue, our country will ultimately land on the right side of history.

Some notes of thanks

I'm nearly done waffling on I promise - but it'd be remiss of me not to thank everyone that I've told already for your compassion and support.

Everyone has been wonderful - from friends told over Facebook messages in lieu of real-life meetings mid-pandemic, to managers briefed on the niceties of transition over Pizza Express, to colleagues picking up the slack so I can now take this month away to work on my presentation and let the heat die down. In particular, thank you to those who knew before I did and helped me to accept myself.

Once you've come out as trans, you never stop coming out. So whether like my parents you find out in an unfortunately loud cocktail bar, or like my brother in the living room, or like you, today, on social media - your support and compassion is appreciated and means the world. I'm always genuinely happy to connect and answer your questions.

I'm not the brave one

A final note, then. Of the people I've told so far, everyone has been overwhelmingly positive and supportive. I've been told several times that I am brave for doing this, for living as myself, for coming out. The truth is, I'm not the brave one.

I have delayed my transition until I was financially stable, in a good job, with a strong support network and with the ability to tackle this head-on without worrying about my own personal safety. I have taken as few risks as possible and enjoyed many of the advantages of being a "cis straight man" during my early career.

The brave ones are the teenagers who know they're trans and live in unsupportive households and are thinking of coming out today. The brave ones are the trans people that live in countries where coming out isn't an option. The brave ones are the people like me a decade ago, only just discovering the vocabulary and fighting an internal battle. The brave ones are the people that transitioned at school, or without knowing they'd have a job after. Frankly, even people outside the M25 are braver than me.

If you're reading this and you're one of those brave souls, take inspiration and courage from proudly and openly trans people - Laverne Cox, the Wachowski sisters, Sarah McBride, NikkieTutorials. Watch great trans YouTubers like Samantha Lux, Maya Henry and Sam Collins.

But above all else, whatever your situation, allow me - at the very start of journey a decade or more in the making to close out with an oft-repeated, but still accurate cliche. It gets better. Really. I promise it does.