A woman has told how she met the man of her dreams online – only for him to confess three weeks later he wanted to live as a woman.

Instead of throwing Danny – now Lexy – Bradbury out, Hannah Williams, helped her become a woman.

The devoted girlfriend took her shopping and showed her how to apply makeup.

Miss Williams, now 26, of Heywood, Rochdale, was over the moon when she met Mr Bradbury, now 30, via an internet dating site in 2010.

“With his slender physique and short brown hair, I fancied him rotten.”

Miss Williams said. “But it was so much more than physical attraction. It sounds clichéd but we were inseparable and fell in love.

“I’d never felt so comfortable with someone.

“Just three weeks into our relationship I knew he was ‘the one’.”

But at this point, Mr Bradbury dropped a bombshell.

They were at his house when he confessed to Miss Williams he had something to tell her.

“I couldn’t have predicted what was coming,” she said. “I wondered if he was breaking up with me.

“But instead he told me, ‘Inside I feel like a woman.’”

(Image: PA Real Life Features)

Mr Bradbury said he knew it might be too much for Miss Williams to take on.

“But I loved him,” she said. “That’s all I needed to know.”

She said the subject was not broached again until a few weeks later – when Mr Bradbury said he would like to start being called “she”.

“The transition was amazingly easy,” Miss Williams said. “But I considered myself straight and I began thinking whether I could still be with Danny as a woman.

“But I realised I loved Danny for Danny, not what sex she was.

“She told me she had felt different since she was eight and she had told her parents at 18 but they had taken it hard.”

At this stage Miss Bradbury was still dressing in male clothes in public. But at home she would dress as a woman and wear makeup.

In December Miss Williams took Miss Bradbury shopping for fashionable clothes. “Excited she bought leggings and colourful tops,” she said. “At this point she was dying to be herself in public.

“She told me, ‘I just want to be accepted as a woman.

“I encouraged her to grow her hair and wear make-up.

“She looked amazing but still wouldn’t dare wear the clothes out.”

In 2012 Miss Bradbury got depressed about hiding her true self – prompting her girlfriend to tell her to “stop pretending”.

She launched a new Facebook account under the name “Lexy Bradbury” and told people she was now a woman – and they could like it or lump it.

“Two months later she changed her name by deed poll to Lexus, Lexy for short,” Miss Williams said. “She also found the confidence to step out in public in women’s clothes.

“Nobody batted an eyelid.”

After that the couple visited Miss Bradbury’s GP and she was referred to a Gender Identity Clinic before starting hormone replacement in 2013.

“Her skin became smoother and she had laser removal,” Miss Williams said. “She transformed before my eyes.”

Next year Miss Bradbury is set to have gender reassignment surgery on the NHS. The couple are saving up for breast implants.

“It’ll change everything – especially our sex life,” Miss Williams admitted. “But we’ll find ways to make each other happy.

“I’m honoured I’ve got to watch Lexy discover herself.”

Miss Bradbury said: “I am a woman.

“During my teens, I would hide dresses in a locked suitcase under my bed.

“As I got older, anything could be a trigger to remind me of the life I didn’t have.

“Just a pretty girl walking down the street, or seeing a nice dress in a shop would bring me to tears.

“I acted like a typical bloke. I liked going for a drink with the lads and would go and watch Liverpool play.

“When I came across Hannah’s profile and we exchanged flirty messages she could never have guessed the man in a hoodie secretly harboured dreams of high heels.

“After two days I suggested we meet up and invited her round to my house for dinner. We just clicked and Hannah never left.

“Looking back I’ve asked an awful lot of Hannah, but we’re in love and that’s what matters.”