I wasn’t born in Broken Hill. I was transferred here when I was a prison warden, when my name was Warren Miller. One day in 2000, I walked into the prison dressed as a woman and said: “My name’s now Kirsti Miller, and you’ll find me in my office.”

The Commissioner of Corrections at the time, Rod Woodham, told me I had the biggest balls in the whole corrections department. It was the beginning of my change into a woman, although in truth I’d been a woman in hiding all my life.

The thing about transgender people is that until they accept who they really are, they try to hide it. I did that by being a tough boy.

I was a good sportsman, a first-grade rugby league player for Wagga Wagga, and I represented Australia in modern pentathlon, where you run, swim, ride, shoot and fence.

media_camera Warren Miller, now Kirsti Miller, far right, was a gifted athlete. (Pic: Supplied)

I was also a good boxer. I trained hard and competed hard. I thought it would make the girl inside me go away. I know a lot of transgender girls who did the same thing. It’s ironic that some of the toughest men you see might be girls on the inside, trying to overcompensate.

For a while after I had my operation, I was very confused. I was a bit like a teenage girl just discovering her sexuality for the first time — I didn’t know which Spice Girl I wanted to be. Posh Spice? Sporty Spice? Slutty Spice?

It led me down the wrong road. I wound up homeless on the streets of Sydney, prostituting for money and drugs. For a while I completely lost my way.

media_camera Kirsti Miller recovers in hospital after her operation. (Pic: Supplied)

At that point I’d convinced myself I was into men, because that’s what most girls are. It made me feel like a woman to be with a man.

It took me a while to work out that I’d been into women all along, that just because I felt like a woman didn’t mean I couldn’t be attracted to them anymore. It was when I met Nikki, my partner, three years ago, that I settled with who I was.

In 1994, when Priscilla Queen of the Desert came out, Broken Hill was a tough place. It’s mellowed a little, but it’s definitely not the streets of Darlinghurst or St Kilda, where a girl can be any type of girl she wants to be and not be judged for it.

The people here are tough. You’ve got to earn their acceptance.

Sometimes I’ll be driving my taxi and some young dude will get in and say, “Oh, you’re a transvestite!” Or, “Tell me honestly — have you still got a cock?”

media_camera Kirsti Miller, who lives in Broken Hill, has been subjected to humiliating discrimination. (Pic: Matt Turner)

Sometimes they even ask me if they can have a look at my vagina. I always reply by asking them if they’d feel OK about me asking the same thing of their girlfriend, wife or mother.

I’m open and proud of being a woman from a transgender background, but it’s not what defines me anymore.

I’d rather people ask me what my favourite colour is, what sort of music I like, or who I think is going to win the AFL flag this year. I can still talk about blokey things.

I don’t mind being a man sometimes, now that I’m a woman.