This article was originally written for freshu.io by Felix Lecocq. It has been given minor edits before re-posting.

My story is not a stereotypical trans narrative. At least, it's different from most of the stories told by trans men in the media today. I didn't grow up hating dresses and the color pink. I used to giggle whenever my dad would jokingly call me a contessa. Even at the start of puberty, I was pretty well-adjusted. Gender wasn't really something I considered: it was just a fact of life, like breakfast and math lessons. This was part of the reason why I ended up spending my entire life at single-sex schools.

In the U.K., where I grew up, the school system is broadly split into two stages: primary school (from ages 5 to 11) and secondary school (from ages 11 to 18). This meant that I had the exciting and rather harrowing responsibility at the age of 11 of choosing where I would spend the next seven years of my life. In the end, it was a pretty straightforward decision: the best education within reasonable distance of my house was at a girls' school.

For the first two years of secondary school, I was obnoxiously happy. I thoroughly enjoyed my lessons and hanging out with my friends in and outside of school. Looking back at this period of my life now, I feel a weird remoteness, as though it all had happened to someone else. When I look at pictures of my 12-year-old self, I don't recognize her.

It was when I had just turned 14 that something started feeling off. I avoided making eye contact with my reflection and became irritable to the point of outright hostility. Completing all my homework assignments became impossible and I began spending more and more time in the nurse's office, nonsensically weeping instead of at my lessons. Long story short, I was depressed.

It was around this time of my life that I started getting active on the internet, mostly to connect with other miserable teenagers. It was through social media that I found out what the word "transgender" meant. I had already started identifying as bisexual, so I decided to do some research into this other part of the LGBT community.

A lot of trans people talk about the moment they discovered the concept of being trans as an epiphany — a eureka moment when they suddenly know why they were feeling the way that they were. My realization, on the other hand, was gradual. It took me about a year of reading up on trans issues in the spirit of being an ally before it finally dawned on me that I might not be cis (someone who identifies as the gender they were designated at birth).

It was the moment that I realized my gender that I started getting better.

Life became easier. My school attendance and work improved. Before, happiness was an obscure fantasy that my parents had for me. While some parents dreamt of their child becoming prime minister, mine would have settled for me being happy. Now, however, happiness was tangible, within my grasp, and took the form of a chest binder and a men's suit (size XS).

Unfortunately, like all true stories, mine does not wrap up easily and resolved. I still had the slight inconvenience of suddenly being a guy at an all-girls' school, which opened up a plethora of problems and uncomfortable situations.

I was still not comfortable being out to teachers yet, which meant that, every day, a teacher would refer to a class as "girls" or "ladies" and I would feel my insides curdle.