She has made a long and courageous journey from suicidal teenage years in Surrey to sex reassignment surgery in July 2012, aged 30. Her moving memoir, Trans, is extracted below

Brighton 2004





A letter dropped into our family home, informing me that the Arts and Humanities Research Board would not pay the tuition fees for my masters or provide a living allowance. I’d made plans to become an academic, but that prospect was now looking bleak. Phil – one of my closest friends from childhood who was going to do a masters in international relations – had found us a flat near the seafront. But moving in that September, I soon realised I’d have to study part time and find a job – quickly. Leaving full-time education meant adult responsibilities: for my 22nd birthday, I got £20 from my grandmother and a £1,000 council tax bill.

Unlike Manchester [University, where I did a BA in history], the University of Sussex had a film library and queer studies centre. I went to my first seminars in a pink shirt and makeup, replacing my overcoat with a brown fake-fur-lined women’s jacket from Oxfam. My new course mates were the people I’d hoped to meet as an undergraduate: Jimmy liked Werner Herzog movies as much as I did and was usually up for a trip to the Duke of York’s or the Cinematheque. Max, a Tottenham fan, would come with me to watch football matches in pubs.

Jennie introduced me to avant-garde writers such as the early-20th-century feminist and futurist poet Mina Loy. Alice, who wrote papers on arty French erotic films and who always looked great in her neon-pink coat and her beaded polka-dot tops, said she liked to go to what we called “gay clubs” around Brighton, but which were being rebranded as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) venues. The inclusion of the “transgender” made me feel I could go to these places as Juliet. Phil didn’t care what I wore, laughing just about how I’d spend my money on dresses when my men’s clothes were falling apart. I became relaxed at home – I knew I could wear what I liked without feeling judged – and soon I became confident in going out.

I was far more comfortable shopping in Brighton: the city prided itself on its “alternative” culture, with punks, goths and electro-pop fans blending in as much as the LGBT clubs stood out. Some places fell over themselves to show how accepting they were: I grew fond of a nameless shop in Trafalgar Street, whose owner responded to my request to try on a cocktail dress with stories about her “drag queen” friends, asking about my size and style before throwing whatever she could find at me.

I would get ready in our bathroom, shaving my face and chest, arms and legs, and then get the lift from our floor to the street, hoping nobody saw me. As I couldn’t afford a bus, it was a long walk to the Harlequin or Kemp Town for “T-friendly” places such as the Queen’s Arms, Charles Street or R-Bar, and I worried that people would ridicule me, threaten me or worse. I preferred the walks in winter. Light and heat made me feel exposed, my makeup running as both fabrics and fear made me sweat. In the dark and cold, nobody looked at me much. Sometimes, crowds at the nearby church would stare as I approached. Worried about my voice, I’d mouth: “Excuse me” and walk faster, trying to ignore their obvious disapproval.

In general, groups of young men would be more openly hostile. Often I’d get to Seven Dials, hesitating when I saw people over the road by the cash point. Sometimes, they’d yell: “I’m a lady!” at me – a catchphrase from the sketch show Little Britain, uttered by “rubbish transvestite” Emily Howard. I’d rush off, hoping they’d be satisfied with just laughing at me. I knew that standing up for myself would result in a kicking.

It was safer to stick to quiet back streets. One night, avoiding busy North Street, I looked down an alley. Thinking it was clear, I carried on. Three men sat at the other end, drinking. One sized up my legs, licking his lips. Another wolf-whistled. I knew what that meant: I’ve read you and I’m calling you out. Terrified and humiliated, I dropped my head, but the verbal attacks just got worse. Over time, I realised that however vulnerable I felt, the only way to stop them was to hold myself up and try to look fearless.

And after the difficulties of getting to my destination, meeting my friends always made these hazardous journeys worthwhile. I’d feel liberated, particularly in the newer venues with their largely female crowds. The men in older joints such as the Queen’s Arms tended to ask intrusive questions about what was in my bra. I preferred to sit in the corner and chat. Alice and I soon became close, finding plenty of common ground in our musical and aesthetic tastes. She preferred tops and skirts on casual nights out to appear not to have tried too hard, and soon I ditched my dresses for similar outfits, including some that she gave me. I’d tease her because her friends in bands were so style-conscious; mine, on the other hand, were in guitar acts and wore jeans and plain T-shirts. They declared that “fashion is fascism” and decried keyboard-led groups like Miss Pain with their 1960s clothes and songs that included diary extracts. My friends claimed that their lyrics were seriously political, unlike this confessional froth, and I agreed.

Beneath my anxieties about where I went and what I wore, and how I was perceived and treated as a result, was a growing discomfort with my body. Often, my choice of clothing was an attempt to make this visible. I felt no happier with the labels of “transvestite” or “transsexual” than I had during my teens and I’d never seen this sensation of discomfort expressed other than in phrases such as “trapped in the wrong body”, which had never quite spoken to me. I didn’t like my facial hair, flat chest or genitalia, but I’d long known that I could change them. The more I read about [the pioneering sexologist Dr Magnus]Hirschfeld’s patients, or transsexual women such as April Ashley whose marriage had been declared void when her husband wanted to divorce her in 1970, a precedent that still stood, the more I felt trapped not by my body but a society that didn’t want me to modify it.

I took a deep breath.

“Ever since school, I’ve felt that life is pointless,” I said [to the counsellor]. “It may be depression, I can’t tell any more. I’m always bored, tired, unable to enjoy anything. Nothing ever fixes that. I don’t fit in anywhere, especially work, and it’d be better if I left, but I can’t afford to. I’m never satisfied with anything I do and always feel I have to justify myself.”

“To other people?”

“And to myself. I feel so isolated, so rootless.”

“Slow down,” she said. “We need to find those roots. Where did you grow up?”

“Horley. There wasn’t much there – a little library and a few shops, a couple of youth clubs.”

“When you were very young, did you make friends there?”

“Yes, but they kept moving away.”

“So how did you spend your time?”

“Reading or playing computer games. I was mostly alone at school.” I paused. “When I was seven, this kid called Terry from the year above invited me to play this game where you had to get across the playground without running into anyone. I said no as I didn’t want to get hurt and he said, ‘We’ve got to make you more masculine.’ I told him I was fine and he ran off.”

“That’s a strange thing for an eight-year-old to tell you,” she said. “How did you feel?”

“Lonely,” I replied. “Who did he mean by “we’, I thought, and why did it matter?”

“Did it matter? To you, I mean?”

“Not then. It became more important when I was 10.” I drank some water. “I was watching The Chart Show on TV. Erasure were No 1, doing this cover of Take a Chance on Me. The video cut between two guys singing and two people in leggings, sequins and feather boas. Then I saw the singers were dressed as the women from Abba. They looked like they were having fun, so I copied them.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘There was this huge rush of energy [when I wore my mother’s dresses].’ Photograph: Pal Hansen/Observer

“What did you do?”

“I went into the spare room, where my mum kept her dresses. I never saw her wear them, but she had them for special occasions. I checked to make sure everyone was out, then tried on this blue dress with a pleated skirt, over some tights...”

“How did that feel?”

“I’ve never quite been able to express it…There was this huge rush of energy…”

“Was it sexual?”

“Isn’t everything when you’re 10?”

She smiled.

“Maybe it was, partly, but I already knew it meant far more than that. It just felt natural. Calmer. More comfortable. Then I heard my parents’ car pull up the drive. I got changed, trying to make everything look like I’d never touched it. After that, whenever they went out, I’d ask how long they’d be so I could plan to do it again. I just felt confused – I didn’t know what it made me or what would happen if anyone found out. I just knew that I wasn’t supposed to do it, but that I felt happiest when I did.”

“What was stopping you?”

“Fear of getting caught. I didn’t tell anyone for six years, I spent that whole time thinking about killing myself. I still can’t be myself around my family, I’m always holding back.”

“Have you told them anything?”

“When I was 18, I got a phone call from Chris, my friend from school. I’d tried to cut everyone off when I went to college, but we were still in touch. He said, ‘I’ve heard this horrible rumour that the girl across the road saw you in your room, wearing a dress.’”

“What did you do?”

“I screamed, ‘That’s bollocks!’ and hung up. I thought my parents would hear from someone, so I told my mum I was gay. I didn’t think she knew much about identity politics so I hoped that would cover anything.”

“How did she react?”

“She was angry at first,” I said, “but after a few days we talked and she realised I’d still be the same person. I don’t know if she told my dad, but nothing really changed. I’ve never spoken to my brother about it.”

“You’re not gay,” she said.

“I’m attracted to men.”

“Maybe. But I know lots of gay men and you’re not like them.”

“I consider myself transgender,” I replied.

“What do you mean?”

“I have a male and female side… I don’t know how they relate.”

“You’re not depressed, but you have some intense conflicts to resolve. Do you paint or draw?”

“I loved to as a kid, but I don’t any more.”

“Why did you stop?”

“We had to choose our GCSE subjects and everyone I wanted to avoid did art because they thought it’d be a laugh And people kept telling me to pick things that’d help me get a ‘proper job’. Look where that fucking got me.”

“Have you considered kickboxing as an outlet for your anger?”

“No,” I replied, laughing. “I write.”

“Good. You should address these issues creatively. Plenty of authors and artists felt the way you do.” I thought of writers I loved, from Russian revolutionary poet and playwright Vladimir Mayakovsky to English novelist and film-maker BS Johnson, who hated their governments, their contemporaries and often themselves and how I’d drawn comfort from them. My 50-minute session ended and I left, feeling so much lighter than when I arrived. That night, having aired my long-standing anxieties about achieving nothing as time passed, I woke at 3am, obsessed with what I’d do on New Year’s Eve, even though it was two months away. I returned to the counsellor a week later.

“What can be done about these feelings?” asked the counsellor. I closed up. “The female expresses your loving side, that your family never let you show,” she said.

“Nobody let me!” I replied. “I had to spend years at school pretending to be male. I bought T-shirts with ‘No Fear’ on them, baggy jeans, record bags, trying to be like the boys. No one was fooled, especially not me. But if I didn’t do it, I thought I’d get beaten up.”

“This is where your anxiety comes from,” she told me, handing me some leaflets on relaxation techniques. Self-help bullshit, I thought. But once I’d gone home, I decided to read them, trying the breathing exercises designed to shift my focus from mind to body. I lay on my back, taking in air and holding my breath, trying to slow myself down. I didn’t think it was working; it felt like the anxiety was too deeply ingrained. It filled my brain and colonised my body, in particular my arms, making my fingers shake whenever I held out my hands. I reported back at my third session.

“You don’t respect your body. You don’t love it.”

“I want to escape it. I wish I could just be a spirit.”

“You have a split personality,” she insisted. I looked at her, resentful of such pathologising language. “You need to integrate these sides with each other, and with your body. List all the ways you neglect it and work on them.”

I left. For a beautiful moment, the internal chattering stopped; for once, my mind felt clear. I decided not to put my MP3 player on, noticing the trees without their leaves. The noises of pedestrians and traffic stopped feeling like a dull background buzz and became sharper, stronger signs of life. I focused on the minutiae of existence, rather than my big ambitions, understanding that achieving the latter wouldn’t be possible without taking care of the former. I made a point of cleaning my teeth twice a day and playing football with friends.

Gradually, my anxiety subsided, at least at times. I started going to house parties as Juliet, wearing the kind of tops and skirts that Alice had suggested a few years earlier. For the most part, it wasn’t a big deal – my friends just talked to me the same way as ever and I preferred being with them in private to clubs, but every now and again, someone would ask if I wanted to “go all the way” or “have a sex change”.

“Maybe in a few years,” I would reply. I gave my counsellor the same answer when she asked how I felt about myself. “I consider myself male in body but female in spirit,” I told her. “I’m happy with that.”

“Then I think we ’re finished.”

“Thanks for all you’ve done for me.”

Transgender journey: time for sex reassignment surgery at last Read more

“Thank yourself,” she told me. I stepped outside, ending nine months of therapy, and made a point of listening to the birds singing on my short walk home.

“Did you want to go privately, or via the NHS?”

asked my GP. “NHS. I can’t afford private.”

“I’ve not had any training on this and I don’t know much about it,” he said. “All I can do is refer you to specialist services.”

“That’s what I’d expected.”

“You know it’ll be slow, right?”

“I don’t know how slow, but yeah.”

“This is all done through mental health, so I’ll refer you for a psychiatric assessment at Hove Polyclinic. Don’t worry, it’s just screening to make sure you’re suitable for the Gender Identity Clinic in London.” He paused. “There’s a waiting list. Three to four months.”

“That is slow.”

“Spend the time thinking about how you might tell people. It sounds like you’ve done your research, so if you know any support services, I’d get in touch.”

I left, full of questions. What if the psychiatrist says no? If he says yes, how will I tell my friends? What if they disapprove? What about my family – what if they disown me? What about work? How am I going to pay for all those new clothes? How long will this take? What will the clinic want me to do? What’s going to happen to my body? Where do I even start?

Calm down, I told myself as I got home. At least you know what you’re going to tell everyone: I’m transsexual. They’ll understand that – changing your name and appearance, hormones, maybe surgery. At least you’ve got time. There’ll be more questions, but they can wait. For now, I was glad to have picked a path through all those options I’d encountered in Feinberg and Bornstein, online and at Transfabulous.

I emailed the Gender Trust to say I was considering reassignment and wanted to speak to a qualified therapist. They suggested I visit the Clare Project’s drop-in centre, held on Tuesday afternoons at the Dorset Gardens Methodist church in Kemp Town. I arranged some time off work, put on a little makeup and walked over in a pink shirt and black trousers, wishing I’d brought a friend.

It didn’t look like a church. Instead, it was a modern mix of red brick and glass with no curves, one corner resting on a stone wall that I guessed was a relic from an older building. I pushed through the door, surprised at how heavy it was and exhausted as it slammed behind me.

“Hello,” said the facilitator. “How can I help?”

“Well...” I caught my breath. “I’m thinking about gender reassignment and I was told this was a good place to come.”

“We think so,” she replied, smiling. “Have some handouts. There’s tea and biscuits in the common room if you want to go and read them or chat with anyone.”

I sat and looked at the frequently asked questions sheet, produced by the Gender Trust.

How Many Transsexual People Are There?

The rate of occurrence of transsexualism is not accurately known. Because of the social stigma attached, arising from widespread lack of awareness of the true nature of the condition, it is often kept hidden. Therefore it is only possible to collect statistics on the numbers of declared transsexual people and such figures undoubtedly represent only a propor- tion. Estimates vary widely between one in 4,000 and one in 10,000.

What Is the Medical Treatment for Gender Dysphoria?

The currently accepted and effective model of treatment utilises hormone therapy and surgical reconstruction and may include counselling and other psychotherapeutic approaches. Speech therapy and facial surgery may be appropriate for some trans women and most will need electrolysis to remove beard growth and other body hair. In all cases, the length and kind of treatment provided will depend on individual needs. The male to female person will take a course of female hormones (oestrogen) similar to those used in the contraceptive pill and HRT; the female to male individual will take testosterone. At this time trans people will also be required to carry out the real-life Experience, during which they will be required to change their name and all documents, including passport, driving licence, medical card, legally, to be consistent with their new gender role. During this, they will also be expected to live, work and socialise full time in the new gender role, to deal with any problems which may arise for example at work or within the family and generally become familiar with the reality of living this way. After a minimum of a year (or two in some NHS gender clinics), if the experience has been successful and the psychiatrist in charge is satisfied with the progress made, they can be referred for surgery. After surgery, trans people will continue to take hormones for the rest of their lives, but probably at a reduced dosage.

No wonder friends had said: “Do you really want to go through all that?” when we’d talked about transition in the past. I put the leaflets on hormone therapy, hair removal and name changes in my bag and made some tea. There were a couple of trans women, older than me, quietly drinking. One of them smiled at me and I thought we’d get on.

“Hi, I’m Juliet.” I said. “Nice T-shirt – I love Unknown Pleasures.”

“Thanks. I’m Steph.”

Naomi walked in. I recognised her from Miss Transgender, and we talked about music, sharing our love of the 1970s Krautrock bands. Then a woman called Alice entered, with long white hair and a flowing skirt, gloating to Steph about that weekend’s Arsenal match.

“You like football?” I asked. Steph and Alice nodded. “Who’s your team?”

“Stoke City,” said Steph, proudly. “Season ticket holder.”

“Really?” I replied. “Do you get any hassle?”

“No, my friends there have known me for years. Who do you support?”

“Norwich.” They laughed. “I know. Someone’s got to.”

Lynne, the counsellor, came in. “We’re going for drinks if you want to come.”

“Sure,” I said.

I sat in the pub with Ryan, a trans man, and asked where he was from.

“Horsham,” he said.

“Oh, right. I went to Collyer’s.”

“How did you find it?”

“Best two years of my life,” I replied. “I came out as a cross-dresser and my friends were really supportive. Several of them moved to Brighton and we’re still in touch.”

“You didn’t try to transition there, did you?”

I shook my head. He told me how the teachers hadn’t backed him or used his chosen name and how his classmates had shunned him. I’d always been cautious about who I told out of fear, but I realised how lucky I’d been as a teenager to find people who had always backed me and that I hadn’t needed to make such a leap at such a vulnerable age. Now, though, I couldn’t compartmentalise in that way and Lynne asked how I thought coming out to everyone would be.

“My friends should be fine. I think work will be OK. My contract’s up in a few weeks anyway,” I said. “No idea about my family.”

My phone lit up. “Matt,” it said: a text message from my brother. He never wrote unless we had a family event to organise. What did he want?

“I’m getting married next summer and we’d like you to be an usher. All the guys are going to wear matching suits, so we’ll need your measurements.”

I stared at the text, head in hand, laughing.

“What’s up?” asked Lynne.

“Twenty-seven years,” I explained. “He couldn’t have picked a worse day.”

“You’ll work it out,” replied Steph. “You’ve got ages.”

“You’re right,” I said, smiling. “Shall I tell him I’m a size 14?”

We laughed and I put my phone away. Walking home, drunk, I just wrote: “We’ll talk about this soon.”

Steven Ansell had been the last of my friends to turn up for my leaving party

in Brighton, the Saturday night before I moved to London [to have surgery]. He marched into the Lion & Lobster at 2am with a huge grin on his face, gave me a massive hug and then handed me an envelope.

“I wasn’t sure whether to do this because, you know... things have changed,” he said as I opened it. “But then I thought – fuck it.”

Steve had made a card with a photograph of us at his home in Horsham, during a practice for our punk band, the Cheated. From the Norwich shirt I was wearing, I dated it to autumn 1996 when we had both just turned 15. We had the same floppy fringe, with short back and sides: Steve was holding an acoustic guitar, looking earnestly at the camera; I had a microphone and a pensive stare, wearing denim jeans and Doc Martens boots. Inside, he had written:, “I call this ‘portrait of two young anarchists’ – Happy 30th!”

“I wrote a song on that guitar this week for the new Blood Red Shoes album,” he told me as I stared at the picture. “I hope this is okay, anyway.”

“I know I look different now but I’m still the same person, and I’ve never wanted to deny my past. I’d rather people didn’t edge around it,” I replied. “Thank you so much!”

Steve’s gift made me think about the fascination with the “Before & After” image in mainstream media coverage of transsexual and transgender people. I first became aware of it long before my surgery – in fact, before I’d even left school. I remember one article in a women’s magazine about someone “Born a Man”. At the time, I didn’t consider how stupid this phrase was: I was too dazzled by the photographs of a person reclining, her palm resting where her forehead met her long, blonde hair. “Now I’m a Beautiful Woman!” screamed the headline. In her pre-transitional past, the woman looked like a boy, neither exceptionally attractive nor unattractive. Now she could have been a model. There was barely any detail on the treatments that helped her change her appearance, though: clearly, the photographs were the story.

In the Sunday People, I saw an ad for a company called Transformation. “From He To She… Instantly!” it promised, above photos of a stubbly, balding man and a glamorous woman in heavy makeup, a brown wig and a pretty dress. The advert was selling feminising products to male-to-female cross-dressers and transsexual women. I was sceptical about what they were offering to stop facial hair growth or develop a bust, knowing these would require more than putting cream on my face or stuffing something inside a bra. But while the women’s magazine feature seemed from another world – I knew I could never look like that person, nor was it my dream – this advert made me feel transition might be possible, even if I didn’t know how.

Later, I saw before-and-after photos have the effect of masking processes of change even as they ostensibly reveal them. When used in stories about unfamiliar people, these images are sensationalist, trying to make readers marvel at how it might be possible to move between male and female, usually using the most typically masculine and feminine pictures for maximum effect. Their shortcomings were exposed when US transsexual people such as Alexis Arquette, Chaz Bono and Lana Wachowski, already in the public eye, came out. In particular with Arquette, who had played cross-dresser Georgette in Last Exit to Brooklyn, there was no point in pretending she had changed overnight; instead, media outlets studied old images to see which “signs” they had missed.

By the time I had my sex reassignment surgery in 2012, I’d seen this demystification so often that I found it strange to see such pictures in print – and never stranger than when someone I’d known by a male name at sixth-form college in Horsham became famous as a female model, with tabloid newspaper spreads yet again carrying before-and-after photos. I recognised her from the opening catwalk shot long before I got to the image of her as a boy or the text about her struggle to realise herself as a transsexual woman rather than a gay man, and then navigate the pathway.

At that point, I thought back to the photo Steve had given me and how I looked now, and about the media that I had struggled so hard to change since I saw that first set of pictures in that women’s magazine. I marvelled at how much and how little had changed.

This is an edited extract from Trans by Juliet Jacques, published by Verso (£14.99). Click here to buy it for £11.99

Juliet Jacques will be discussing Trans at “Representing Trans: Acts of Self-Definition” at the Tate Modern on 20 October with artist Yishay Garbasz and Paul Clinton, the assistant editor of Frieze.

Q&A: Juliet Jacques talks to Sheila Heti



Juliet Jacques and Sheila Heti became friends after Jacques contributed to Women in Clothes, a book co-edited by Heti.

SH: There’s an interesting line in the book where you say: “If you articulate an outsider critique well enough, you stop being one.” What’s your relationship to being an insider or outsider after being embraced as a voice by people in the trans community, and politicians who invite you to their events and want you as a spokesperson?



JJ: I’ve felt like an outsider from an early age – first in my family, then at school and in my home town, then at university, then in every job I’ve ever had. So a big problem came when I felt that considering myself an outsider wasn’t tenable any more. There was this strange mixture of fascination and repulsion in going to places like the House of Commons. I’ve noticed that there are many ways I feel like an insider in terms of where I’m published, who I’ve met and the opportunities I’ve had. But I sometimes still feel like an outsider within those circles, because my perspective and frame of reference make me feel like I don’t fit in. I think I’m through with those swanky liberal LGBT events now – I’m now far more selective about what I’ll go to...

SH: It struck me, reading your book, how hugely your coming to understanding and acceptance of yourself revolved around looking at representations of people in art – not only trans people, but people with non-mainstream identities. There were the positive, inspiring models like Morrissey, Priscilla, I Shot Andy Warhol and Almodóvar films, then there were things like Ace Ventura. I wondered if you could talk about that, and if part of your motivation in writing the book was to present another model to help other people make sense of themselves?

JJ: Partly due to social prejudice, enshrined in Section 28, I saw little choice but to apprehend my identity through culture. I was at the mercy of those who edited newspaper articles, and wrote and directed films and TV programmes, and their representations of trans people and gender identity. The more mainstream places probably wouldn’t have involved trans people on the creative side, and certainly wouldn’t have cast them as trans characters, but would have put them on chat shows like Jerry Springer or Ricki Lake. So I had to find pop culture’s queer underground, and Morrissey and Warhol were my routes in. I wonder how much of it was that I felt I had no other option, and how much was that I’m more interested in a certain type of culture than most people. I’m sure there are plenty of trans people who are left cold by these things – you can probably be trans and never see an Almodóvar film and you’ll be all right.

SH: One of the motivations of your book seems to be to cut down this phrase – “trapped in the wrong body” – as a dominant way that people who don’t know much about trans people think about them. You really demonstrate why it’s not apt.

JJ: The conclusion that I and people like [musician and transgender activist] CN Lester reached at the same time was: what if we’re not trapped in the body but trapped in the wrong society? [Author] Kate Bornstein was questioning this phrase 20 years ago, but I still see it in mainstream media as a way to convey gender dysphoria. I understand why it exists as a shorthand, but never felt “trapped” in my body... I said [in a piece for the Guardian] that transitioning was about “relaunching the symbiotic relationship between my body and mind from a starting point that felt right.” I stand by that.

SH: Do you consider yourself a feminist? You wrote about Germaine Greer and a certain line of feminism that you say “hates” trans people.

JJ: Maybe because I spent my 20s feeling so excluded, I find the word “feminist” difficult to apply to myself. And perhaps after working through so much trans terminology, I’m fatigued with labels in general. But feminism has done a lot to shape my writing: A Transgender Journey [the series of columns Jacques did for the Guardian web site between 2011 and 2012] was an attempt to counter socialist, conservative and feminist transphobia at the same time. My tactic has been to acknowledge that there’s no way around the fundamental problem with a certain brand of feminism refusing to accept our identities, so I try to appeal to an audience not immersed in those arguments, saying: “What’s the fairest perspective on this?” It’s an effort to make sure that trans perspectives on trans lives reach people in influential positions.

SH: There’s such a compelling sense in the book of being with you through your days, so I thought I’d ask in closing: what was your day like yesterday?

JJ: I went back to my therapist for the first time in 18 months, partly to discuss the effect that writing the book had had on me, and what it was like to return to all the memories in it. Then I did a podcast where I talked about my relationship with the media, then went for a drink with friends in Leytonstone.

SH: It seems like it was a nice day

JJ: It was pleasant enough.