Bailey Roma was 15 when she first wore a dress in public. It was the moment she had dreamed of since she was a little boy.

"It was flowy and soft. I liked twirling in it," Bailey said.

"No one laughed when they saw me, not that I noticed."

MARK TAYLOR/FAIRFAX NZ Bailey wore her family korowai (cloak) to an award ceremony at Government House in Auckland, where she and Peter Lawson were acknowledged for completing the Project K Programme.

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She wore the dress to a sweet-sixteen birthday party and drew strength in numbers, by rallying a group of friends to go along with her.

Bailey is a transgender girl. She was born male but has never identified with the conventional ideas of what it is to be male.

At 16, she has decided to live as a girl beyond the sanctuary of her home.

"I never felt as if I wasn't a girl. I always thought I was a girl," she said.

"There was no sudden realisation. It was, just, known.

"My cousin asked me if I was gay once. That really annoyed me.

"It's not just about wearing dresses or stuff like that, it's about being feminine, too. It's hard to explain, but it's just who I am."

Bailey is the third of seven children. She has five brothers and one sister.

The walls of her family home are full of memories. The pictures document the children's lives: birthdays, school photo days, family get-togethers. There are none of Bailey.

She winces, "I hated my hair when I was little, it was shaved. I looked like a boy."

Her hair is dyed a fire-engine red.

"I like photos now, though. Just give me notice before you take them so my hair's not a mess."

Bailey is soft-spoken. You have to lean in to hear her.

Her laugh, however, echoes through the house.

"I had to teach myself to speak like this. I was a bit worried when I went through puberty, but my voice stayed the same."

'WE ALL KNEW'

Bailey's dad, Mike Roma, is perched on a chair in the lounge.

He's what you would call a typical bloke, dressed in a green hunting shirt and trackpants.

"I have six boys and a girl," Mike Roma said.

"But since Bailey's transition, I've counted her as a daughter. So two daughters and five sons."

He said his daughter's story is very much centred on being the middle child.

"You know what they say about the middle child - they're always skipped over or missed out, because the focus is on the oldest or the youngest ones.

"So this, for her, is her time to tell her story."

Mike said from the moment Bailey walked and talked, he knew she wasn't like her brothers.

"It's not like it was a phase. From a young age, we all knew.

"She would gravitate toward anything feminine or female.

"We used to have visitors who would turn up who would have the clip-cloppy shoes. She'd go to those, put them on and walk around the house.

"It just carried on, it stayed that way ... everyone in the family could see it."

He said there had been previous attempts by family members to "coach her into wearing more boy stuff and doing more boy things".

"She did give it a go, but she was never happy. She did it to please others."

The two years at Intermediate school was when Bailey first noticed the whispers.

"I started to dress and act more like a boy then, because I didn't want to shame out my brothers and I wanted them to accept me," Bailey said.

"I hated it and didn't really know what to do."

Those two years were difficult for Bailey, but she was always free to express herself at home.

"At that time, it had already been established in my own mind that she was going to be who she was going to be," Mike said.

"I had already accepted that. My biggest struggles were with what other people were going to be thinking and saying about it.

"There were some hard times dealing with people, even family members, who didn't exactly have a problem with 'it' - so long as 'it' was standing over there, sort of thing, at arm's length."

He said he didn't "have it all" at the start, and like any parent, has learnt over time.

"You cannot prepare for parenthood. You can do any seminar you like, but parenting always brings its own challenges.

"Parenting is no easy task - it asks a lot and has asked a lot."

When Mike talks about Bailey, he still confuses pronouns.

"I feel Bailey's lucky to be out in a time where there has been more acceptance of transgender people.

"Because he, uh, I mean she - see, I'm still struggling with the transition, always getting caught out with that," he said.

"They're still your child, that's what I was trying to say. They're still your child."

'SINGING AND DANCING'

Aumihi Tapara is Bailey's stepmum and has been part of her life for more than 10 years.

"She's always singing and dancing," Aumihi said.

"One Christmas she asked for a Barbie doll. She was a bit nervous.

"But the family didn't mind it. Her grandmother bought it for her."

Aumihi said the only change she's noticed since Bailey's transition is the missing clothes.

"We open up each other's wardrobes and she brings me home clothes from work."

Bailey volunteers at St Vincent de Paul's op shop during school holidays.

"We do have a different style, though. She's a lot dressier."

She said everyone in the family has bonded with Bailey as a girl, but of all the relationships, she admires most the bond between Bailey and her dad.

"There's a sensitive side to it. It's different to the boys. It's really special."

Aumihi said although they knew they would always support Bailey, public reaction was always a worry.

"We always knew it would be hard because we didn't understand and even up to this day, we tell Bailey we don't understand how she feels but we have to follow what she says.

"The fear is that she'd be bullied."

That's a fear Bailey's dad shares.

BULLYING

"I remember my days back in high school, the ones that were like Bailey, they got hammered, there was no acceptance," Mike said.

"Some of them are not alive now because of it. There were two I grew up with who didn't even get to see a 21st birthday.

"If you wanted to talk about fears, that would be it. How far can bullying push someone?

"You can do what you can do around your own home, but eventually they step out. They're then at the mercy of the world.

"She's had to - and will have to - deal with things that I probably couldn't comprehend. I would have caved in, as a man, for lesser things than some of the stuff that she has had to put up with - the names, the stares, the judgments, the rejection.

"Our family is a cohesive unit because we have to be, it's the only way we're going to get along out there."

PROJECT K

Last year, Bailey was involved in Project K.

The programme is designed for Year 10 students and involves confidence building, teaching life skills, and promoting good health and a positive attitude. It's run over 14 months by the Foundation for Youth Development, a nationwide charity.

At the completion of the programme, Bailey, along with 26 other young people, were recognised at a national awards night at Government House in Auckland last month.

Bailey received one of 13 Project K Student Excellence Awards, recognising students who have made significant changes in their lives and shown commitment to the programme.

Mike hopes other young people who face adversity are encouraged by what Bailey has achieved.

"They were congratulated for being who they were, not so much what they achieved.

"We've learned, through Bailey, that you aren't truly living if you aren't true to you."

FUTURE

Before we leave, Bailey wants to show us her room.

It's tidy, but apparently it's not always this way.

"I'll have to get the newspaper to come around more often, Bailey, so it stays clean, eh?" her dad said.

The walls of her room are plastered in boy-band posters. There's a feature wall dedicated to UK band One Direction, but group member and blonde heart-throb, Niall Horan, takes centre-stage.

"I like him the best because he's different," said Bailey.

"Everyone thinks the band members are all from the same place. Niall looks English but he's actually Irish."

In the wardrobe, there are bags of dresses and neatly hung blazers.

She has plans for the dresses.

"I work at St Vinnies, an op-shop, so I get really good bargains on stuff all the time," she said.

Before long, there are dozens of dresses sprawled out on the bed. The long gowns are perfect for her long legs.

"This is a summery look, I feel, so I'll save that for the beach or something.

"This one [a white and black fitted dress] is the one I wore to the awards thing.

"Ooh, this one is nice, it has a matching jacket. But I don't have the figure for it yet."

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is not a path Bailey's sure she wants to take.

"I don't know what will happen in the future," Bailey said.

"Surely I don't have to have surgery and that to live as a girl?

"Whatever, I'm happy as I am. I'm more worried about what my hair will look like in this dress.

"Do you think tied up or leave it out?"

AWARDS

As part of the Project K programme, run by the Foundation for Youth Development, teens are matched with a mentor. Mike Roma says Bailey owes Peter Lawson a lot.

"The first time I met Bailey," Peter said, "I thought I was meeting a boy."

"We talked for a long time, though, and it really felt like I was talking to someone I had known for a while."

However, Bailey worried the 40-year age gap would be a problem.

"We were born in different times and he's older than my parents," Bailey said.

She cracked a joke and, sure enough, had to explain what LOL meant for Peter to understand the punchline.

Peter cracked a joke that only he laughed at.

But the conversation was fluid and natural.

"I didn't know how to tell my parents I got a 50-something-year-old man as my mentor," Bailey said.

"I wasn't sure if I made the right decision, but talking to him was like talking to an old friend.

"He listened to everything I said and wrote it down so he would remember it next time."

Bailey is on her phone during the interview with Peter. He pauses and tells Bailey to put the phone away. She rolls her eyes, then flips her phone over, screen-side down.

"Teens, eh?" Peter said.

Lawson and Bailey took part in a three-day project where they had to navigate their way from the bush in Pirongia back to "civilisation".

"It was a great learning experience - and not so fun for Bailey," he chuckled.

"Worst experience of my life," Bailey said.

The pair became good friends and Bailey soon met Lawson's wife, Helen - the first person outside the family she confided in about being transgender.

"Not only did Peter embrace me, but he embraced my family. He embraced my beliefs and didn't judge them, he didn't judge me."

Peter is less of a mentor these days and Bailey's younger siblings affectionately call him Uncle Peter.

"He's a part of the family now, aren't you, Peter?"

HORMONE TREATMENT THERAPY

Hormone treatment is available in New Zealand and for male to female transitions. It costs between $15 and $20 per month after a government subsidy is applied.

But Lynda Whitehead, president of trans support agency Agender, said the process is a lengthy one.

"The first port of call would be to see a GP, who will then refer the patient to a psychologist, then an endocrinologist and then back to the GP," she said.

"At 16, it's much easier. The older you get, the more difficult the process can be."

There is also publicly funded surgery for trans people, capped at three male to female surgeries and one female to male surgery every two years.

That process is also tedious.

A transgender person must be officially diagnosed with gender identity disorder, obtain psychiatric and psychological reports from two senior psychiatrists and a senior psychologist with experience in the field, and have undergone more than 12 months of continuous hormonal treatment.

And, "more than two years of successful and continuous real life experience as a woman/man", according to the Ministry of Health website.

Whitehead is unsure how many trans people take HRT or how many are in the process of having gender reassignment surgery because there are no statistics available.

"The big problem is that there are no options on the census forms for people to be recognised as a trans person. The only option there is for intersex people," said Whitehead.

"We have anecdotal stuff, but take a lead from America and the UK, who do record the stats of trans people."