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Alex Drummond is helping people break out of their conditioned ideas of what men and women are “supposed” to be.

She sees the new movements of genderqueer and non-binary genders - meaning people who don’t identify as either ‘male’ or ‘female’ - as ultimately the route to finally deconstructing the inequalities between men and women.

A lifelong advocate of feminism, Alex, from Cardiff, says: “A lot of my work is with the boundaries of gender.

“When I was young I did my best to fit in with the social expectations of gender being placed upon me by others – doing my best to be ‘a proper boy’ or a ‘real man’ but, intuitively, instinctively, I realized my own gender identity was more complex.”

While she working on her Masters degree in her 40s, Alex, now 51, discovered a new way of looking at gender, which was not restricted to just male or female.

This, as well as learning what it meant to be transgender as an identity, allowed her to begin living fully as a trans woman.

(Image: Alex Drummond)

Now she is “blurring the lines” of gender to create safe spaces for people who might have never realised they could break out of standard gender binaries.

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'The beard was sort of an accident'

Alex, who lives near Cardiff with her long-term partner, has long, flowing dark hair, gentle crystal-blue eyes and a warm, infectious laugh.

Silver rings with huge purple amethyst stones adorn her fingers and a beaded necklace complement her matching earrings.

The linchpin to her look is a neatly trimmed beard.

“Funnily enough, there are no legal bars to a woman having a beard, only social ones,” she says.

“(The beard) was sort of an accident.

“Visibility, diversity and familiarity will breed acceptance and this is a very visual way of showing that trans people exist.

“Being visible will help people to get to know that other genders exist and then ultimately come to accept it.”

(Image: Michal Iwanowski)

Alex works in Cardiff as a psychotherapist and photographer and said before transitioning she was apprehensive about the effect her appearance would have on her business, particularly working as a psychotherapist.

'People are more accepting than one might imagine'

“I carefully commenced the process and it worked. It turns out people are more accepting than one might imagine,” Alex said.

She says Cardiff has been a fantastic place to live and be transgender: “Cardiff, I love. I find Cardiff feels very safe, albeit I’ve had to recognise that as a trans woman, many of the constraints that apply to other women about personal safety in public spaces also apply to me.”

In 2012 she authored a book called “Grrl Alex: A Personal Journey to a Transgender Identity”, which aimed to give more people access to the information she wished had always been available to her.

Her visibility in Cardiff and internationally as a woman who breaks conventional social norms has been a part of a deliberate choice to become a positive narrative in a community, which is often stigmatised or invisible.

(Image: Michal Iwanowski)

She says media stories about transgender people lean toward either victim identities or sensationalism.

What people often aren’t exposed to are positive stories of people living successfully as transgender.

Because of her appearance and her determination to change the way society sees gender binaries, Alex is broadening the collective social awareness of what it means to be a woman, as well as what it might mean to be a man, and anything in between.

“The genderqueer movement is the most feminist you can get because it deconstruct gender. Genitals don’t define who you are. You define who you are,” Alex said.

She added that her activism as well as ability to reach out to other people - and their ability to reach her - has been drastically broadened with the expansion of the internet, which has “democratized knowledge.”

“As a child, I had no one to validate the idea that I might identify more as a girl and that that was even possible.

“Now, people questioning their gender identity can connect and there’s a whole trans community to access.”

(Image: My Genderation/YouTube)

She hopes her continued visibility helps people of all ages find courage in becoming who they truly are.

“Ultimately, I want to inspire people to live an authentic life. By being visible I’m showing there are other ways of being. And if a child sees me and thinks ‘ah, so that’s possible’ I’ve served a greater good,” she said.

Watch Alex talk more about her experiences: