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Opening up his wardrobe in the morning, Ryan Wigley has a difficult choice.

Faced with rails full of men’s shirts and women’s frocks, what he wears will depend on whether he has woken up feeling male or female.

Half the time he feels like his female self, Ria.

Half the time he feels completely male.

Ryan, 22, is bi-gender, a term coined by the transgender community and a condition recognised by psychologists.

It is one of 56 gender options available on Facebook.

“It’s so confusing,” says Ryan, an illustrator.

“I have to guess which I’ll be the next morning to plan my day. I try to work out how I feel the night before.

"If I feel more feminine I’ll have a shower and set my alarm earlier so I have time to get ready.

“If I feel like a girl several days in a row, the upkeep is hard. I need to shave my face, chest and legs every day, wash my hair and keep my make-up in place.

"I feel like I prefer to be female but I’m much more relaxed in what I look like when I feel like a man.”

Sometimes he gets the urge to switch gender during the day.

“If I see a pretty dress in a window, even if I’m in a male mood, I can feel myself standing differently. My mannerisms change,” says Ryan.

He is attracted to women but says previous partners have struggled to deal with his two sides. Recently he got together with girlfriend Krystal Griggs, who loves him in both guises.

Student Krystal, 18, says: “I told him I honestly didn’t care. It’s what’s inside that counts. When I saw Ria in female dress my first thought was that she’s beautiful and I tell her that as often as I can.

"I can’t believe how quickly he goes from male to female and how smoothly.”

Ryan first had the impulse to wear female clothes aged 13. “I was walking downstairs past some of my mum’s freshly washed clothes on the landing,” he says.

“I grabbed a bra and dress and ran to the bathroom.

“I didn’t really have any understanding of why at that time. The clothes felt different yet comfortable, even though I looked kind of ridiculous.

“I felt so much guilt but soon I was sneaking into my sister’s room. I knew what she didn’t wear so I could take dresses without her noticing.

“She’s much smaller than me and I took anything I could fit into. The one I loved was a black stretchy dress.”

Ryan kept that side of himself locked up and dressed up only in his bedroom.

“I opened up to my first girlfriend at 16 and she was understanding at first,” he says. “But she saw it as a problem to be dealt with. So I felt ashamed and tried to stop.”

After Ryan left home in Kent at 18 to start an illustration course at University for the Creative Arts in Maidstone he was able to dress how he wanted. “It was the first time I’d had a lock on my door and my own space.

"I started to get over the guilt. I was cross-dressing more and more, but still in secret.

“Some days every inch of me felt like a bloke and wearing a dress wouldn’t even cross my mind. Other days though, everything inside me felt female. It was my body telling me.

"It hit me that I was two genders. I’d never heard of anything like it before, so I made up a name, bi-gender.”

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He googled the term and found the website bigender.net. “I joined the forum and there were so many people echoing how I’d felt for years,” says Ryan.

“It was a revelation – I didn’t know it was a real thing. I decided to name my female side Ria. I wanted to embrace her. She was as much a part of me as Ryan and deserved a name. But I still didn’t tell anyone.”

It was 11 months later, in January 2013, that he decided to test the water with his close friends.

“First I just told them I was a cross-dresser,” he says. “I was shaking and stuttering but it didn’t faze them one bit. We were all art students so everyone had individual personalities.

"In fact, they were more surprised when they discovered I was left-handed!”

Later that month Ryan wrote an online journal to explain to his friends what bi-gender means. He says: “I told them I’m male and female and switch between the two. They were fine with it – it was an anti-climax after I was so worried.

“That February I went out with them to the pub dressed as Ria for the first time. I was so self-conscious and braced for comments, but I only got a double-take and I can handle that. My friends were supportive and didn’t treat me differently.”

(Image: PA Real Life Features/Photographer: Carl Fox)

Three months later Ryan found the courage to tell his parents too. “I was going back home for the summer holidays and didn’t want to go back in the closet.” he says.

“Dad asked if I wanted to be a woman. I had to explain it’s not the same as being transgender. They don’t mind it but we don’t talk about it.”

Ryan first met Krystal at a party that September. “He was Ryan that night,” she says. “We said hello and afterwards I added him on Facebook.

“One day he commented on a status using his Ria profile and I recognised her as Ryan. At first I thought it was just cross-dressing. But he explained it and we didn’t dwell on it.”

They bumped into each other again at a beach party this summer and began a relationship soon afterwards.

Ryan was naturally worried when she asked him about his Ria profile on their first date in August.

“After telling others I was calmer than before,” he says. “I wanted her to ask questions so she’d understand. Although it was tense showing her Ria for the first time, she was so positive.”

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Krystal has since found her ­relationship with Ryan to be the perfect mix. She says: “I treat Ria like a princess. Usually with a guy and girl relationship, the guy treats the girl but we can treat each other. It’s a more fulfilling relationship.

“He definitely has two personas and I can tell straight away whether it’s Ryan or Ria – they have different mannerisms.

“Ryan is much more slouchy and like a guy but Ria has an effeminate manner, plays with her hair lots and is quite dainty when she’s walking.”

Usually Ryan sticks to baggy T-shirts and jeans to go to a gig or out with the guys. But for clothes shopping or finding new make-up, Ria will go out with girlfriends in a feminine frock.

Ryan says: “I was self-conscious shopping for dresses when I was dressed male. I knew shop assistants would think I was buying something for my girlfriend.

“Now I always go dressed as Ria and shops have been really great, letting me use women’s changing rooms.”

Ryan says of the future: “I wouldn’t consider surgery but maybe I’d think about having hormones to look and feel a little more like a woman.

“When I feel like Ria then we do consider ourselves a lesbian couple.”

They haven’t been out shopping together yet but Krystal says with a smile: “I’m already sizing up Ria’s wardrobe, I’ve picked a few things I want to borrow.”