Bronze stilettos perch on a shelf behind James Dawson’s front door. To the left sit plimsolls. Scan between them and there in cartoon simplicity is the story about to unfold. Left to right. A to B. Man to woman. Except that Dawson is not a man and the story that follows is far from simple.

He ushers BuzzFeed News into his living room, pours tea, and arranges Jammie Dodgers on a plate. We are here in his Brighton home because he needs to tell the world something.

“I’m a trans woman and I’m about to start transitioning,” he says. His seven multi-award-winning books, including Hollow Pike, Say Her Name and the international bestseller This Book Is Gay, line up behind us on his desk, each bearing a name that will soon disappear: James Dawson. The male pronoun will be gone soon too, but for now he asks to be called “he” and referred to by his birth name.

“You wouldn’t call a butterfly a butterfly until it had hatched,” he says, wryly. His hair is a feathered pixie-cut, recently dyed the colour of pumpkin; his lacquered nails are black as crows.

Just a few months ago, Dawson lost the hipster beard he’d grown to go with the muscles he spent years obsessively building and the tattoos he’d had branded on to him. He tried hard to be a man. He even wrote a book called Being a Boy. But, it transpires, after 30 years of trying – pretending – a lifetime of instincts rose up and shook him. “I’m not wasting any more time in the wrong gender,” he says. “So let’s get on with it.”