News, views and top stories in your inbox. Don't miss our must-read newsletter Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Pretty Alana McLaughlin looks like any other young woman - but less than five years ago she was a macho-male soldier in the US Special Forces .

Alana - who was born a boy called Ryan - was a stacked figure of rippling muscle, spending her days engaged in lethal armed combat.

Unknown to her fellow soldiers , Alana, 32, had always felt female, and had joined the Special Forces to either 'become a man' or to be killed.

Now Alana, from Portland, Oregon, has finally found the courage to live as a female, and after full gender reassignment surgery, she is hoping to find love as a woman.

Alana said: "I joined the military initially because I felt like it was my only option to either force myself into manhood somehow or die.

(Image: Barcroft Media)

(Image: Barcroft Media)

"I wanted very much to be actively engaged in combat so I would have the opportunity to get myself killed. I view it very much as passive suicide.

"I fought, shot, lifted weights, I grew beards and I rode a Harley and it didn't change anything. I would still cry myself to sleep at night."

Alana served in Afghanistan as a shooter and a medic in the A Team Delta as a way to escape her problems.

She knew from a young age that she identified as female and while dealing with gender dysphoria she was also a victim of sexual abuse.

Alana said: "As a child, I prayed every night. I prayed that god would either change my body and make me a girl or change my mind so that I wouldn't want to be.

(Image: Barcroft Media) (Image: Barcroft Media)

"And neither of those prayers were answered. I lost my faith".

Alana's conservative parents have found it difficult to accept her as a woman.

She explained: "I told my parents that I was gay and I felt like I was a girl and I wanted to be a girl.

"When I first told my parents this, my dad didn't talk to me for like a week or two weeks.

"They just would not accept me as their daughter and I'll only ever be their son. I was a massive disappointment.

"They really seem to be fixated on this idea that I was trans because I was raped. Sexual abuse does not change your sexuality, it doesn't change your gender."

Alana has encountered other hostile reactions to her decision to live as a woman and her first attempt at transitioning after she left the army in 2010 ended in a bloody act of self-destruction when she decided to cut off her own breasts with a scalpel.

Alana said: "I'd been on hormones but I felt hopeless.

"All the messages I was receiving were that I could never be legitimate - that I could never be a real woman.

(Image: Barcroft Media) (Image: Barcroft Media)

"I felt like I would never be taken seriously and I would only ever be a joke.

"You can only hear so much negativity before you start internalising it and I started to feel like I had to be a man.

"I'd been on hormones long enough that I had some breast development and I didn't want to be a man with boobs so I took a scalpel and removed the breast tissue myself.

"I went into the bathroom and I had my surgical kit there and I performed surgery. "As an A Team Delta, my surgical skills were up to the task and I did pretty clean work.

"But it was a pretty self-destructive thing to do - and very stupid."

Alana began her transition again in earnest in 2012, having a range of surgeries including a breast augmentation, facial feminisation surgery and sex reassignment surgery.

She explained: "I wouldn't say just your physical form."

Alana says that the surgery to appear more feminine is less about vanity and more about fitting in with societies norms.

(Image: Barcroft Media)

(Image: Barcroft Media)

Alana said: "The surgery makes it less likely people will realise you are trans and gives you more safety. I want to survive."

Alana has now made a group of firm friends who accept her as a transgender woman.

And now she hopes to find someone special to share in her new life.

Alana said: "I'm hoping that eventually I'll be able to settle down with someone - it's important for me to find love.

She added: "I finally feel like I'm a real personthat I felt like I was in the wrong body as much as I was in the wrong role. Gender boils down to a lot more thannow and I don't have to pretend anymore."