He told hosts Waleed Aly, Carrie Bickmore and Peter Helliar he knew he wanted to be a boy ever since he was little. 'I'm the real me, I'm loving it, life is good': Andrew Guy on Channel Ten's The Project. "I remember asking my mum, 'If you want to become a boy, is there anything you can do about it?'" Guy said. "And she said, 'Yes, you can have an operation.' I was literally so relieved. I was like, 'Great, can we go and do that next week?' And she said no. But I still thought about it a lot. I still used to go to bed at night, praying that I could wake up the next day as a boy."

When Bickmore asked how he survived his teenage years, Guy responded: "I'd have to say, badly and suppressed. I don't recommend it to a lot of people." Guy has documented his experiences on video over the past year, showing clips and childhood photographs to viewers. From left: The Project's Peter Helliar, Waleed Aly, Carrie Bickmore and guest host Andrew Guy. He explained that as a young woman with blonde hair, he "was just doing my darndest to be attractive; to be the best woman I could". This only made him unhappier. For the last five years, however, he has been the "real me and I'm loving it ... life is good".

'I used to go to bed at night, praying that I could wake up the next day as a boy': Andrew Guy on The Project. Having been near-invisible until recently, transgender people and characters have become more prominent in the past two years, including former olympian Caitlyn Jenner, Orange is the New Black actor Laverne Cox and Transparent protagonist Maura, played by Jeffrey Tambor. However, pioneering performer Carlotta was one of the first, debuting as a panellist on talk show Beauty and the Beast in the 1990s and appearing more recently on Studio 10. 'I was just doing my darndest to be attractive, to be the best woman I could': Andrew Guy on The Project. "Has Caitlyn Jenner helped?" Aly asked. "Is that actually teaching us anything?"

Guy said: "It has ... [she's] a transgender woman. A lot of older, biologically-born males that are trans women — they tend to do it later on in life. But these kids these days, who are born this way, really can't help but just be that now as children. We've got a lot of young kids coming through and I think it's important that we recognise and honour them." 'I remember asking my mum, 'If you want to become a boy, is there anything you can do about it?'' He added that he is a mentor to a nine-year-old boy named Ben, who lives in Auckland. "He's a great kid, he's just a boy, born female," he said. Guy emphasised that "people who change their gender are just an every person [who] eats and sleeps and gets hurt, and is here to live as best they can alongside everybody else".

"I think the parents that are out there today, supporting their transgender kids, that's just spot on and you have to. "Otherwise, there are going to be some issues later on in life that you have to deal with — that I had to go through — and they're going to avoid that and be really strong, healthy kids. And I admire the parents doing that." The segment drew praise on social media, with viewers commending both Guy and The Project's "commitment to diversity".

"You've just broken a new paradigm," Guy told his co-presenters. @Michael_Lallo mlallo@fairfaxmedia.com.au