Int.: We’ll start off with where you were born, where you grew up and everything? 

Christian: Okay, erm, well I think as I already mentioned, I wasn’t born or brought up in Liverpool, but nearby in Runcorn. So that’s where my early life started and that was in 1971, so quite a long time ago [laughs], so yeah grew up in the seventies and eighties as a young person. I suppose at that time, especially in somewhere like Runcorn in that era, it was quite difficult for me…as somebody that’s trans so, obviously I didn't realise I was trans then, didn't really know what that word meant. But yeah it was quite difficult for me. I was born into a catholic family as well which brought its own problems, and I was the youngest child of four, with a twin sister, so all female siblings. Yeah I think again that brought its problems as well so y’know a female environment, apart from my Dad, and always knew really from a very young age that I was a boy and that I was the wrong gender and that’s all I really knew y’know, I couldn't put it into a context or…as I say I don't think I really fully understood what trans was until I was quite…quite old, maybe late teenage years cause if you look back in the seventies and eighties, the type of school, the catholic school that I went to and it just wasn't really talked about and it didn't have the educational tools like we have now and the visibility. So yeah, I kind of knew from… probably six or seven erm…that I was different, is probably the best way to put it, and…erm…but happy y’know, I was a really happy child and I think that that is important to talk about, especially for a trans person, cause I think people y’know they do see your struggle and your journey and unhappy times that start quite young, so I think it’s important to kind of remember the positives so for me, my childhood was amazing. I was a happy little boy, as I saw myself, and I suppose I convinced myself in my own little imagination, I believed I was a boy and I think that’s the good thing about being a child really [laughs] you can be anything or anyone you want to be y’know, cause your imagination is amazing, isn’t it? So yeah, I believed I was a boy and that’s what got me through my childhood. And I suppose I was quite lucky with my family and with my parents as well because if you consider it was the seventies, y’know a practicing catholic family, catholic school, catholic beliefs, but when I dressed and lived as a little boy nobody really said anything to me, my Mum and Dad never said "you can’t do that” or “that’s out of bounds” or “don’t play with that”. So yeah, I think I was quite fortunate, I was quite lucky in that respect and I don’t know the answers as to why…it was so easy at home, I’ve never really been able to ask, but although it was just so accepting I don’t really know why that was and y’know, there’s all kinds of theories about nature and nurture and y’know…did my dad want a boy? You could go into all these things but all I know is that they loved me for who I was, this different little child [laughs]. They didn’t refuse to buy me boy’s clothes, or just the clothes I wanted to wear, which were trainers and football kits and cords and yeah, they just let me be me. And I just really loved those times and when I look back, they're just amazing memories for me. I can compare them to life now and that’s how I kind of compare my life y’know, my life now and my life then is just as happy. I suppose, the bit in the middle was the huge journey and the - some struggles. But yeah, I was just completely accepted and my twin sister, again, I don’t ever remember her kind of thinking ‘Why are you being a boy?’ or ‘Why are you acting like a boy?’. There were never any strange questions and we were very, very close, as you could imagine for twins, the bond was very strong and still is. There was just never anything strange about it.  

School was great, primary school and yeah. I loved that time, but I knew I was a boy. I knew I was a boy and I suppose it’s easy at that age, or easier to transform yourself. You don’t get as hung up about your body or your genitalia and the fact that to me, I had a body part that was missing, I wasn’t kind of hung up about it, I suppose things were just still quite innocent for me. But having said that I did, even at that age, know that…that’s what I wanted, I wanted a penis. I’ve always been quite open about that, I remember thinking about it. I remember making something so that I could go to the toilet standing up. Definitely by the age of eight. So yeah, I kind of look back and think, I knew what I wanted. That’s why now when you kind of, y’know, you hear trans kids and young people and they know what they want. I remember even all that time ago, I’m forty-eight, and I can remember what, over forty years ago - and I knew who I was. I think it’s… those feelings are so strong but then as you kind of journey through life, it’s kind of what you do with them and I dunno, life just seems to be quite a little bit more difficult when you grow up. And it’s not as simplistic—well for me it was…and even the whole idea of going to the toilet, once I’d made something, I could go to the toilet standing up. And that was fine, and I was happy, but I do remember keeping that very much as a secret. Y’know I don’t remember just like, talking about it freely. So yeah, I never talked about it until probably over…thirty odd years later when I went through the gender care pathway. So that was very much a secret so I think although it was simplistic and childlike, I probably still knew…what I could talk about and what I couldn’t. But yeah, moved on to secondary school and rem—I suppose that’s where for me, it did become more of a struggle. It’s why I can kind of really relate to, and identify with, trans young people now and why I spend a lot of time working with them and talking with them because that time is—it can be really difficult. Peer group pressure and not fitting in, and y’know I kind of describe myself at that time, I describe myself as a social misfit. That is, that is definitely how I would describe myself and only a couple of weeks ago when I was speaking to a young LGBT youth group, I said that and I could see like [laughs], so many of the young people in that group like [points to self] y’know, could identify with what I was saying and I always make a point of saying that’s how I describe myself not anybody else. That’s how I felt, and it is y’know. In secondary school, I just didn’t fit in. Didn’t fit in at all, and I think the only thing that kept me going was the fact that I did have a twin sister. Thankfully we were in the same form and the same sets and everything throughout school, so I had my constant companion, which we all need. Didn’t have any friends, but I had her. I think she really saved me during that time, even though she wouldn't have known, I didn’t talk about any of this with her or anything like that, but just having somebody there for me, it helped when my kind of, stability … mental health was an issue…yeah, isolation. I suppose yeah I just probably threw myself into school at that time and tried to achieve erm…I always wanted to be a teacher [laughs] don’t know how I ended up in the police [laughs] but erm, yeah just threw myself into that and escapism at home. So, we lived quite a distance from that school because it was the only catholic school, so I had to travel to it and when we got home it was just me and my family. So, I suppose I felt safe there and then at school I used to try and get by. 

In some ways it compares to when I transitioned and what happened at work y’know, going to work and then couldn’t wait to get on the train back home. So yeah, they were kind of my early years, real struggle through secondary school. Still didn’t tell anybody but I suppose, at the time for me I didn’t know what I was dealing with and it just blurred completely for me with sexuality and gender and I didn’t really know what was going on. I kind of though y’know, all those questions ‘Am I gay?’ but even that was quite confusing for me because I always felt male and I was drawn to males, but I didn’t know if that was because I wanted to be one, or whether it was a physical attraction. So it was really confusing because y’know, I did quite often find myself kind of drawn to looking at them and in a sexual way but, I didn't know if it was just because I wanted that body part, and that was at the forefront of my mind and sometimes when I saw that to people I can just see them thinking ‘I don’t fully understand what you're saying’ but that’s how I felt so. I didn’t…I didn’t know whether—I didn’t know who I was attracted to, so it did really blur for me and as I grew older I kind of… I dunno I would probably even describe it as a fear of being in a relationship with a man as a woman… cause it didn’t feel right for me cause I knew I was a man. And I knew I was gay. There was a lot of confusion for me but by the age of seventeen I was identifying as gay. As a gay woman and I ventured into Liverpool for the first time to seek out y’know, LGBT kind of support really and living in Runcorn that was quite a big deal for me. So, it was 1988, significant year, Section 28 and erm, I was quite suffocated at the time and there was just nothing that I could really get from where I was at home. I contacted a London friend [London Friend Switchboard] from a phone kiosk, and they put me in touch with a youth group here in Back Colquitt Street and it was a huge adventure for me [laughs]. I think now y’know, most young people at seventeen have probably got it all sorted but to me it was massive getting on that train at Runcorn. I just told my twin sister. I got on the train and I just remember walking to the, Back Colquitt Street and thinking [whispers] ‘Where am I going?’ Yeah it was really quite overwhelming, but it was an adventure as well and for me there was no turning back after that, that journey. The youth group was, probably as you would imagine it back then, it was, it was all male. So, the room was - it appeared really seedy, it probably wouldn’t look seedy to me now but as a seventeen year old kid I was like… But there was some really good people there and I met a couple of guys who I became friends with and that was the beginning of my…of my kind of journey, of my exploration here in Liverpool.

Int.: What was the feeling of when you first walked through the door?

Christian: I was so scared, it was just a fear, an overwhelming feeling of fear. I felt different y’know and not just because of my gender, it was a room full of guys, males, I didn’t see any other women, I didn't see I dunno…anybody that was different like me, I felt so different. I walked in and I felt scared. I felt like I’d really pushed myself out of my comfort zone. I thought, probably initially, I first thought I’m not coming back. I’m not coming back here I’ll just kind of like chat a little bit and then I’ll head off and it just ended up to be so different, I got chatting to loads of people and we actually went out afterwards. We went to a bar called Scarletts and yeah that was my first experience of a gay bar and again that was - it felt really kind of dark and dingy and y’know, something like I’d not experienced before it was just…it was eye opening for me, first experience of the scene. But at the same time, I suppose I was conscious of going home that night back to something that was gonna be so different and it’s almost that feeling of, how do you go back having experienced this? Who are you gonna talk to about it, who do you tell or do you keep it all close—cause as well I was seventeen in a bar and there was that kind of side to it as well. I just remember being really excited as well. Really super excited and yeah, I didn’t wanna go home…didn’t wanna go home. I just remember thinking, as I thought my train was quarter past eleven back to Runcorn, and I literally did run out of time and I ran all the way to Lime Street and got there and yeah, walked through until the woman told me that I’d missed the last train home [laughs] it was quarter to eleven. I was just like, [whispers] ‘oh my god’. That led to kind of another overwhelming feeling of, what do I do now? I was young, I was naive as well, I wasn’t that kind of mature seventeen year old and y’know, Lime Street was quite a scary place at that time, of a night time and quickly I felt I was surrounded by…a dangerous situation erm - and also that feeling of…what am I gonna do? Who am I gonna call? In the midst of panic, I rang my Dad, who didn’t know where I was [laughs] I just remember thinking, what’s he gonna say? What’s he gonna do? My Dad, I ‘spose as I kind of remember him back then was quite a reserved man. A religious man. I didn’t quite know what was gonna happen but a ‘spose in desperation I had to call somebody and that’s who I called so, I waited for him to collect me. I was trying to prepare all my answers of where’ve I been and all this and we ended up sitting in silence the whole way back. He didn’t ask me anything and I didn’t offer anything, and it was a really awkward journey but at the same time I thought it could have been much worse. He could have been asking me - he could have hit me, he could have shouted at me, he could have done anything y’know so… yeah, I get back and erm, I was in school the next day. But I realised that I had to go back and that was the beginning of my journey really and I think once you experience something like that, as an LGBT+ queer person that’s y’know, it’s enlightenment, isn’t it?

Yeah there’s no going back really. So I suppose what happened to me in school, I was fortunate in another way too, at that time I had become a little bit lost in school and I had kind of lost my way a bit and the whole gender and sexuality thing blurring and I thought I had nobody at all to talk to other than the people I’d met at this group. One of my teachers did kind of save me a little bit…told me himself that he was actually gay which y’know for me was… I could see that was a huge risk for him to take, and he did it for me in the hope that I was gonna say “Yeah, that’s how I feel” and “Wow, there’s somebody else that understands me”, and that is what happened really. He obviously didn’t recognise the gender situation I was going through, but he was thinking this kid needs some help, I think they're probably suffering with their sexuality, and as it turned out it was a bit of both. That was again the beginning of my journey with him and he actually introduced me further into the gay scene in a very safe way. 

I was in sixth form then and certainly by the time I hit eighteen, we became friends, and we’re still friends today y’know, he’s sixty three, he’s retired from teaching and he’s married to his husband in Chester and he’s been with me on my journey. He took me out to Manchester as well, took me out to Manchester Gay Village and showed me round just the do’s and don’ts, which for me really is what I needed, because y’know, coming from such a small town and then going into big cities like Liverpool and Manchester it was quite daunting. Yeah, my life kind of started there and my kind of queer journey. By the age of twenty I moved to Liverpool, bought my first house in Walton, and by that time I was in a relationship with another girl, and yeah, very much on the gay scene. Then by twenty three I’d joined the police and my first station was actually not far from my house it was literally down the road, it was Lower Lane police station in Croxteth, Norris Green and, yeah it was a real daunting journey as a woman. As a queer woman, as somebody struggling with their gender identity, for all those reasons yeah, the police force was…a difficult time for me. So much so, by my third year in the police I was looking at another career pathway and was on the verge of leaving. Actually, I qualified as a driving instructor, random as it is [laughs] but I did. I was about to leave because the environment was so hostile. It had got out that I was gay and even though I felt like I was leading quite a closeted life, people had started saying to me “Everybody knows about you, it’s out” and I just remember thinking oh my god what do I do? I felt like… back then in the police force it was very rank structured and it was very erm… it was very male dominant it was very macho, but even to the point as a young police officer you weren’t allowed to sit on the same dining room tables say as older in service officers so, it was an unbelievable place and I just remember thinking as a queer person, how am I gonna manage in this environment? So I was on the verge of leaving and this whole situation of people saying “We know about you” and all this, I’d become quite withdrawn so I was then trying to pretend so, I’d kind of describe that period of my -period of a complete loss of identity. And just a lie, my life was just a complete and utter lie. I was pretending to be straight, I was pretending to go out with guys at that time and turning up to do’s and Christmas parties and it was just so stressful, as well as having my own struggle going on and as well as trying to get to grips with a new job, which I didn't think I was that good at. So, I was thinking about leaving and then I moved to a different station, I ended up working at Tuebrook’s Police Station, and there I got my police driving course and my career just turned around overnight, it was just really random. But I come back from the end of a driving course and end up on this section, and it was a really young section, and I was probably one of the oldest at what, twenty-seven or something, and I felt like I was with people that I could teach and educate and that actually my kind of identity and how I was, it just didn’t seem such an issue anymore. 

That was the turning point and where my career took off really. Still wasn't open with my sexuality, still didn’t feel safe enough. But by this time, I was in…in a kind of second, probably, long term gay relationship so was very much identifying as gay. Then for me a kind of horrible situation that affected me in 2000 where erm…I was going out with a girl and we’d gone to Manchester Pride and got interviewed by DIVA magazine, I’ve still actually got the magazine and the interview and everything and the photographs. Yeah it was a really cool day but I just wasn’t thinking about the consequences of that, and obviously that got published and erm…and yeah I got very much publicly outed because of that, somebody at work bought it and then distributed it across the police station where I was working and so overnight my private life became very, very, very public. I suppose that made me realise, because of how badly I got treated for being gay, it kind of made me realise that the organisation and Merseyside police just weren’t ready to accept my gender identity. So sadly that kind of caused me very much to withdraw and hide and it led to a really difficult time for me where my gender identity wasn’t going anywhere and it just became more and more of a struggle because there just didn’t seem like any way out for me. Never told anybody, still throughout that time. I ended up being in a nine year relationship and it was never something we talked about, it was very much hidden. 

I think if you asked anybody back then, ‘Did they know?’ They probably would say ‘No’, it was that well-hidden. Same with my family. And then by 2009 I just was seriously struggling. Really seriously struggling, and at the time I was working covering the Liverpool City area as a detective and work was tough and I started to really feel the pressure of not being me. I just remember one night going home from a late shift and I was online and a guy who I was working with, I just thought I think I can trust him, we both identified as gay and he was very closeted about his sexuality so I knew he’d get the whole closeted bit. I just messaged him online one night and I’d said y’know, “I need to tell you something” and I said “I think I’m trans like, like I think I need to do something about this” and his response was just really positive, he said “Let’s do it, let’s do it together, whatever you need to do and just use me. If you're not ready, I’ll do the stuff for you”. It was just the best decision that I could have made and he’s still one of my loyalist friends to this day and I’ll always be eternally grateful to him because it was just a life changing decision that I made that night to tell him that. He did a lot of the leg work for me then because I just didn’t have the confidence so I couldn’t pick the phone up and he contacted a support group and stuff, I couldn’t have managed that cause I think as a trans person there’s still that kind of, I don’t look how I wanna look, I don’t sound how I wanna sound and people are not gonna get it or people are gonna kind of refer to you as the wrong gender - there’s all that that goes on. So, having somebody else to do those things for you is just like… so yeah, he contacted the likes of MORF in Manchester the trans masculine group, we realised together that Merseyside police did not have sufficient stuff in place for me. So then we ventured further afield and went to the National Trans Police Association and he rang them and he got me a contact, but that contact was in Gloucestershire and yeah, it just felt like an uphill battle and I just thought, I’m in Liverpool, it’s a great city, it’s 2009, what’s happening? A bit of that went on but we struggled together, and he was just such an amazing friend to me. Even though I knew that he didn’t really know a lot himself, cause I think sometimes people think if you’re gay you know everything about trans stuff and the journey well in reality you don’t, why would you? And he didn’t really, and it was a journey for him. But yeah, he found me a contact, and we explored work and it wasn’t gonna happen at that point for me. I spoke to my twin sister, who was the only member of my family that I told at that time, and she completely rejected me, I remember saying “I think…” - it was so difficult to get the words out even, and I just remember saying “I think I’m trans”…and I just remember her saying the words like “Why now?”. Cause I spose it was quite late on in life for me, I was in my late thirties, and to her she was thinking No this can’t be true, surely we’d have known, surely you would have said something about this when you were a kid, when you were a teenager. I think that’s what people outside our circles think with people that transition late in life, ‘Why now?’. They don’t always see all that struggle in between and they're just conforming to society, which is in affect what I did, I conformed to society I tried to fit in, I tried not to be that social misfit like when I was a kid. It was really difficult to take but I kind of knew then, cause she was the closest person to me, it wasn’t gonna happen for me family wise at that time. With the hindsight I have now, I realise how difficult this journey can be for your family and the closest people to you.

It’s hard to take y’know, it’s really hard to take but erm - and at that time I was in a relationship with a woman and…I’d started to explore things little bit by this time, I was packing so I was wearing a prosthetic penis. I was thinking about binding and I remember being in this relationship - and it was only a short relationship it was a 12 month relationship and I remember speaking about this and erm, packing was like fine with her and then when I mentioned binding it was kind of like the end of the relationship. So, I kind of lost a lot of people at the time in one go, in one fell sweep. She was just like, “I don’t wanna be with a man and you’re becoming a man” and she walked out of my life. Never told me actually, just left me and I never saw her again - it was a long-distance relationship, she lived in Cumbria and she just left one day [laughs] and never came back. So I lost a lot of people at that time, I just had my loyal friend and colleague, but also the police just weren't equipped so we kind of made the decision together to…hold tight, as difficult as that decision was in work but consequently what happened was that I did - I couldn't not do anything about my journey myself so I did kind of start to go through my transition behind closed doors, whilst remaining, me to everybody else in work. I did that between 2009 to 2012. Strangely enough in that time I passed my Sergeant exam and got promoted and I do look back at that time sometimes and I think, what does that say? [laughs]. I think for me, it was a distraction tactic, so again, like I did at school, I threw myself into something, studying an exam but also because, as difficult as it was socially transitioning, I was becoming me and life was becoming easier and I was happier and I’d achieved something, more than I’d achieved in the years that I’d been in the police. So yeah it was a turning point, that time even though I see those years as a real struggle, and social transition is a struggle, it is a struggle because of the whole kind of…the real life experience and the lived experience that you’ve gotta do and living in the gender that you are and want to be, it’s a struggle but it’s also a happy struggle if that makes sense. So yeah in that time I was, behind closed doors, dressing as me, being Christian.

Int.: Were there any specific places where you felt like safe and where you could just be Christian and not have any y’know, feel any prejudice against yourself?

Christian: I think initially the only place that I felt safe was inside my apartment. I still love living in my apartment now and I’ve transitioned there and it’s still the safest place to me in the world y’know, it’s my safe haven and I don’t know whether it is because I’ve been through what I’ve been through there and it was once a place that I struggled to leave because it was so safe. But it’s just one of my most favourite places in the whole world. It was behind closed doors in my apartment and that brought me so much joy because it was just…I was becoming me and it was just an overwhelming feeling of happiness, but as I became more comfortable behind closed doors and dressing and packing and binding, and y’know getting used to how that feels yourself and getting more comfortable looking in the mirror and thinking, I don’t know, is anybody gonna tell? And building that confidence indoors, I did eventually venture out. First time I went out in public, as you can imagine, it was just so daunting because at that time I was pre-everything, so I was pre any kind of treatment intervention so I would’ve looked y’know, how I would have looked and…and that wasn’t male. But I felt a necessity to go out, I felt like it was…I was crossing a line. It felt a little bit dangerous if I’m honest. Like a huge risk, but a risk that I wanted to take. I went - the first time I went out I chose to go to Manchester on public transport. I often think y’know, why didn’t I come to Liverpool it’s easy for me to get to, I’m more familiar, and I think it was probably because of who I may bump into, who I may see - work as well, this is where I work, people that I know. I think it was just the feeling of being anonymous possibly in Manchester, and I remember getting the train there and being stood on the platform waiting for the train thinking Oh my god, this feels…scary, it feels dangerous. And feeling y’know, are people looking at me, and what are they looking at if they are looking, are they looking at my clothes, can they tell I’m binding? But at the same time, it was a feeling of complete and utter elation, and it was a high for me. 

Yeah, I went to Manchester and I just spent the day walking around the city. It felt just completely liberating. I actually felt safe, I never really felt, once I got there and I was out and walking around, I never really felt like it was the wrong thing to do or I couldn't carry on or I could only do it for a short time then I’d have to go home. I spent the day there and after that, it kind of just got more and more for me where I went out then with other people, had a relationship around that time, who again was somebody who I kind of explored my kind of gender and sexuality with and who really helped me on my way I would say, we weren't together long but the whole…I think especially around the gender and me knowing and seeing myself as a man, y’know it was just a complete time of exploration for me at that time. But there was still this kind of restriction of work, which was a depressing time because I wanted that time all the time, I wanted to be me. But I got promoted, I ended up as a custody sergeant at that time and I remember, really exploring, and I've only talked about this recently actually cause I met - when you work in custody as a custody sergeant you usually have a couple of detention officers working with you and I had two detention officers and one was a guy called Ben*, he was an older guy, really nice guy, and he wouldn’t have had a clue at that time that I was exploring my gender identity. It was just a really interesting time cause it’s a very public facing role so, as you can imagine, in custody, you’re seeing a lot of people. But you’re almost on a kind of bit of a pedestal as well, and you’re usually on what we call a bridge, so you’re usually positioned above people looking down, so people can see most of your body as well, and I remember at that time, testing the waters of packing and binding in work and just that feeling of, I wonder if anybody knows? I wonder if anybody can tell? and seeing people like, sometimes looking at me and I was thinking oh my god she’s noticed [laughs] but she probably hadn’t but it’s just that you’re obsessed with it. 

I met Ben* a couple of weeks ago for the first time since then so, about seven years have passed and we’ve never seen each other and I was actually doing an educational input for custody sergeants about being trans because they obviously come into contact with a lot of people, and yeah it was really quite liberating to talk about it and to talk about those times with him in the audience, knowing that he would not have even known about that and to go into graphic detail, which I did because I think it’s important with custody sergeants to talk about prosthetics and searching of trans people and stuff like that and the anxiety that that can cause for trans people that are in custody, so I went and I didn't leave anything out, and I said Ben* was working with me at that time and I could see on his face that he was just completely shocked. But at the same time was able to get a little bit of kind of inside knowledge about what I was going through and it’s a really hard job in custody, really kind of…never stops, and for somebody like me to be going through that in that environment, it’s hard to get through cause all you're bothered about - all I was thinking about at that time was me and my gender identity and wanted to become me and that’s - I don’t know how I got through each day if I’m honest. But they were the gradual steps that I was making, and then in 2012, that’s when y’know for me, it was a breaking point and it was acknowledging that breaking point, and although it was bad it was…it was a turning point and it was…there was no returning from that turning point. So, although I have bad memories of it, I did reach a meltdown I suppose in my life, leading that double life, cause anybody that’s lived a double life, you kind of like - it’s so stressful. It’s so stressful and just having to go to work in the wrong clothes and every morning getting up and putting those clothes on is like y’know, somebody dragging a knife down your body, it’s just like - I don’t know how I got through it, I really don’t. With such little support as well. 

But yeah I did reach my breaking point and, I can remember it vividly and at that time I’d started to research again and I’d started to realise that actually, there’s some support here in this organisation and I can do it. But I was still scared and I still didn’t know really what to do and then, obviously it was forced upon me and yeah, it was y’know…a serious investigation came in and erm, I was a detective sergeant by this time and I was running a team of people, that meant that I wasn’t going home and I just remember that thought, already in my mind I was imagining the drive home and becoming Christian and somebody telling me that wasn’t gonna happen was just like…it just - I just couldn’t understand it in my head and I knew, yeah, I knew I couldn’t deal with that, so I did - I walked out of work. That day for me when I walked out, it was almost - that was my statement. Nonverbal y’know, that I can’t do this anymore and erm, I’ve suffered enough, and actually somebody’s gonna have to help me. So, in a way I feel like I forced the job into helping me. It was tough that period, I felt like a lot of people were judging me. I felt like a lot of people thought that I’d let them down y’know, in a work context, I was in a position of responsibility and all of that, but none of that really mattered to me because I was desperate, I was absolutely desperate. I kind of went into work the next day and we started the ball rolling for my journey as the first trans person to kind of - yeah, first serving officer to transition. It took me from June to December to put everything in place that needed to be in place to make sure everything was…because nothing was in place, there was no process and erm, I suppose I’m really proud when I look back, of what is in place now and what we’re equipped to do and the fact that there’s so much more visibility, diverse visibility in the organisation, and people actually wanting to join our organisation having already transitioned or in the process of. So yeah, everything was put in place and then, it was December, the 10th of December 2012 and that was when I started headquarters in my new role, so I moved locations completely in order to become quite anonymous and not bump into people and all of that. I think, what I remember most about that day is the walk [laughs] y’know, the journey that I’ve done this morning and I often look back and think, how did I do that?I would describe it as a feeling of suffocation. I felt like I was completely being suffocated as I walked through the city, like I couldn’t breathe because I was so scared. I did feel y’know, I felt vulnerable, felt like people were staring at me, because I didn’t look how I look now, and I looked like any person does when they’re in limbo and when they’re transitioning, which is what I suppose a lot of trans people do struggle with. But I was now legally a man, and so there’s no turning back you can’t…y’know, you’re a man so it’s like that real-life experience that you have during that, during that limbo period. It’s just really interesting to listen to trans people talk about that period of time because it’s, it’s almost like you’re forced to do something to get something. To get your treatment you have to live in the role and you have to do all of this, it just puts so much pressure on you because you feel you’ve got to live exactly how someone is telling you, there’s no kind of…there’s no compromise if that makes sense, with clothing or it’s got to be very kind of, gender specific. 

So yeah, I walked through the city and I could - on the train to be honest I could see people looking at me and probably thinking, that’s a woman dressed as a man or what is that? And that was before I even got to work, and I just remember it being so, so difficult. So, so difficult, and nothing could have prepared me for it. The night before I didn’t sleep, and that was before I even encountered what was gonna happen inside Merseyside police, that’s a whole different ball game but in the city yeah, I felt like…like I couldn’t breathe is how I would describe that time. I do this same walk now twice a day, and it’s just one of the most beautiful walks that I do and every day I love it and I love walking through the city, I love the freedom that I have, but back then it was one of the most difficult journeys that I used to have to do each day. I used to remember doing things like say, I was a detective at the time so I would have a suit on and - it sounds really stupid now when I look back, but I remember either taking my tie off before I left work to get to the station, or if it was cold, hiding it with something like a scarf and I often look back at myself at that and think, what the…and I think it was just that y’know…I just knew that, people were looking at me… and thinking that’s not a man. So if I could remove a piece of clothing that made it less gender specific, that would make it a bit easier and it just seems so strange when I talk about that and when I look back at it, but that’s what I was doing. That struggle and that feeling of, when is this gonna end? and that period of limbo probably went on for well over a year. Well over a year…maybe 18 months. It was definitely 2014 before I actually felt free and before I actually felt like comfortable being in public settings. It was painful, it was painful. But at the same time, I felt I was journeying to where I needed to be. And yeah, I did face discrimination. People did shout things at me in the street and erm, people did - people were just inappropriate a lot of the time and y’know, “Is that” or “Is it” erm y’know, being referred to in that way, it's not nice. But it makes you stronger and it gets you to where you need to be, in work that went on for a couple of years yeah, of people pointing, people staring.

Int.: During that period of time was there anywhere, or again was it just your apartment where you felt you could go and not have all the hassle of people saying inappropriate things or questioning you?

Christian: I would say, I’d probably ventured out a little bit, a little bit further. I was kind of exploring by that time, I was kind of exploring kind of dating and dating guys so, other trans guys as well. So I was exploring spaces like that, MORF in Manchester, so groups where I was probably with other people that were going through the same journey, so there were definitely safe spaces like that for me erm, LIV.FAST had a group here in the city. So yeah there was definitely, with certain friends on the gay scene, I felt comfortable, but not much more further afield than that, it was probably a couple of years until - so say around that time I was going to Trans Day of Remembrance each year, and I remember that as being a bit of a bench mark for me, because the first Trans Day of Remembrance that I went to was pre-transition, and I remember going just because I was thinking I need to see some other people like me, and going and it was really on such a small scale compared to what it is now, and I remember going into this room, with about twenty to twenty five people, and I just remember standing at the back thinking this feels so good to be here, I feel safe, I can hear voices that are the same voices as mine and it felt really good, and then I’ve been to Trans Day of remembrance every year since, and it’s become a bit of a marker for me, so that was pre me starting my treatment in 2012 and then in 2012 I went and I went again but I was now a man, still stood at the back, but I felt a little bit kind of further out there and a bit more visible. Then the following year, I went and I went with my friend who I’d confided in, we went together a bit more near the front and I was a bit more visible and then in 2014 I got asked to speak at Trans Day of Remembrance and that was - so that was 2014 and I would say that is kind of how I always like look back, and that was my marker really for where I…I just changed so much in a confidence way because I got asked to speak I was what, two years into my medical transition, I’d gone through all of this really kind of difficult period and a bit of limbo, I was still kind of pre-surgery in early 2014 but by Trans Day of Remembrance being asked to speak, yeah it kind of made me realise yeah I can do this. I can do this whole public thing and actually there’s people out there that I need to be the voice for them now actually, I’d transitioned into a different stage. It is always TDOR that reminds me of that transition, because I remember it was at the University that year and I remember thinking oh my god I can’t do this, I can’t speak at an event. I was just really encouraged to do it and I was thinking I dunno, I can’t do this. Can I do it? I remember -and I did the speech and everything and I got up there and did it and it was just, so empowering. I just remember seeing so many young people looking at me, cause it still wasn’t on the scale that it is now, it was still quite a small event, but I just remember seeing so many young people looking up at me and nodding and that kind of yeah, we know exactly what you’re saying, we totally hear you. For me that year I felt like I was the voice for people that had not quite got to where they needed to be like I was, and when I was looking for that voice - which is why I went to TDOR the very first time and stood at the back, cause I needed to hear somebodies voice, and quite quickly I became that person, and that was 2014 and I think that year was just a significant year for me. I became much more public, I had my first surgery, I had chest surgery that year and again…it’s huge y’know it’s just like, not having to bind anymore after five years of binding. 

I was speaking to a young person about this recently in St. Helens and they were really excited about their chest surgery and I said y’know for me, it was the very first time that I put on a t-shirt and I felt it against my skin. It was the first time in like years, and it sounds really simple but that’s what it was for me that feeling the very first time the cotton touching your skin and you’re just like, “I can’t believe I can actually go outside [laughs] like this rather than having four layers on”. So that year yeah, it was significant for me and again it was that, the next step into a whole different life and a public life for me it’s - I think my journey has become very public and that was probably the year that it happened. I feel like, yeah I’ve been on a journey myself throughout that time but I feel like I’ve taken so many other people on the journey with me, and there’s been so many breakthroughs for me with family, because I lost contact with them through that first bit. Especially like, I remember my chest surgery and going on my own and going to Manchester and thinking, I shouldn’t really be y’know, in a hospital on my own going through this. My family don’t even know where I am and, just having those emotions and thinking that’s gotta change. And yeah kind of experiencing those first relationships with other guys and, just lots of exploration for me, and I think talking about it publicly really helped me, and I always say - I know it’s not for everybody and a lot of people just want their journey to be so much more private, but for me, I felt like I was searching for that role model and I felt like I was searching for that person to go and listen to speak, and I never really found it and I thought, there’s…y’know, it’s so important to people that are going through it and are at different stages of that journey to be able to connect with you and relate to that and say “Oh my god yeah, I know exactly what you mean” and go through the excitement and the highs and the lows and go through all that. So yeah, big turning point for me and by 2017, again that was a further move for me, that’s when my lower surgery started in January, and that was life changing for me because my dysphoria was always lower body, always. I speak to so many other trans people now and it’s so different for everybody, I was speaking to a young person the other day and they just said “No, I don’t want lower surgery, made my mind up, I’ve made my decision” and I’m like, it’s cool everybody is so different but just remember that sometimes it can be quite fluid and it really is a transition and just go with it, and if it changes again, that’s fine there’s no pressure, it doesn’t have to be rigid. But for me yeah, I’d struggled all my life because I didn’t have a penis. So for me, when I first landed at the gender clinic in 2013, after waiting years to get there, I was desperate to have lower surgery, absolutely desperate and erm, it took me from 2013 to 2017 and so you can imagine how life changing it was for me. I couldn’t wait, it was just so exciting - scary at the same time because you just hear of all these risks and people tell you all these bad stories of what’s gone wrong [laughs] and you’re thinking oh god, but at the same time it’s just like, y’know what I don’t really care. So yeah, and it was a difficult journey for me getting to that stage for lower surgery as well because it was still psychiatric care pathway so, I had something like six psychiatric assessments, and there’s that stigma. I remember sitting there for the first one in a local psychiatric unit by where I live and thinking, [sighs] how does this feel y’know, I’m thinking I’m okay, I don’t really need to go through this process or why is somebody asking me six times if I really want a penis?  It’s all of that struggle. But I was prepared to do anything so, it didn’t really matter to me but I had my first surgery in January 2017 and again that has led me to a whole different level of being a guy and feeling complete, even though it’s really quite strange because the surgery is done in so many separate stages, you kind of get it but it doesn’t work [laughs] and it’s like [laughs] in your first stage it’s like yes y’know, the creation and erm, I remember being in hospital and thinking I just want to see it [laughs] but it’s just like days and you’re all bandaged up and you’re just in hospital thinking [sighs] is this the day that I get to see it? I remember for the very first time like, seeing my penis and it was just like, the tip of it and the nurse saying “Do you want a little look?” and I-I-I…it was just like erm…yeah, a very, very emotional feeling of finally, my body is gonna be complete. I’m gonna be able to live my life fully, after all these years so, very, very emotional time for me. But then there’s also that waiting for the next stage, and it doesn’t work yet so then you’re waiting -  so it’s a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, desperate for the next stage. Also, as well you kind of feel like your life’s on hold still a little bit. It’s almost like y’know, people are just making you wait so much for everything and erm, I made a conscious decision when I started my lower surgery, that I would stop dating, and that I just wasn’t gonna put myself out there to date. I think I made that decision just because, I didn’t wanna take anyone else through the difficult journey of lower surgery, I knew it was gonna be hard and I just thought, it’s gonna be hard for somebody else to go through it with me and I just, I dunno I just didn’t wanna put somebody else through it. But also, I just thought it’s gonna be so difficult that I’ll just concentrate on that. Then from a practical point of view I was thinking y’know, from the whole point of view of sex…it might be quite difficult [laughs] so I just thought, just sacrifice so, so yeah I never dated erm, and yeah the support that I had going through it, I found one UK serving police officer that had had the surgery, just started - because that was important to me as well to find out if, cause of the huge risks involved, if I was gonna be able to continue with my job, and actually is there another police officer in the UK that’s had this done and if so, are they okay? So I searched the UK and I found one, who is a Police officer in Blackpool, and so we met up and he’d just had his stage one so he’s always been a stage ahead of me, so we’ve become really good friends now and meet up all the time erm, and yeah he’s guided me through each stage and kind of told me what happens at each stage, and when it all goes wrong, is this supposed to happen? No?! [laughs] So yeah I’ve had that support and yeah it’s just been a really exciting time for me the last couple of years and y’know, I feel like finally, I’m at that point of my life where, I can just be me and just identify as who I wanna identify as. 

Yeah I just love my life, but I still sometimes get up and think, there’s a little bit of like disbelief there, how good it is and how…natural it is, and sometimes I look back at the times four or five years ago when I was say binding or…and I kind of find it quite hard to remember those times because today just seems so natural, if that makes sense? I find it almost seems like that bit of my life isn’t real anymore because, I can bounce out of bed and get up and as soon as I look in the mirror, I see Christian, I see a man y’know, I see my body how it is, how it should be, and all those years of hiding, and never ever being naked, never being able to look at yourself in the mirror, it’s almost like, it just seems like a blur to me now like it wasn’t real and it didn’t really happen because now I’m just like, my life is just so much more complete that I can’t wait to be outdoors or I can’t wait to speak to people. I can’t wait to be public about my life and yeah shout about it because this is what I’ve been through and this is what people are still struggling with because we lack so much awareness and education, whereas really my experiences have been, certainly from what people say to me is, because I am so open they’re just like “Oh my god we learn so much from you and we know so much more and actually feel so much more comfortable around the subject and I feel like I could ask you anything” and I’m thinking if we make that happen it will just make it so much easier for people. I suppose that’s why I live the way that I live now, that’s why I’m so visible in this city and do everything I do. I love kind of interacting with the young people at YPAS and the other LGBT+ groups that I go to, I just love, I love that. I’ve just started mentoring a young person at the Hive in Birkenhead, and I get asked to do that a lot and that to me is fulfilling. Aside from what I do in my job, that to me is exciting because I just think there’s a big gap there as well  still because, if people are searching me out to mentor people because they can’t find appropriate mentors for young people, that means that there’s a necessity and a gap there as well. But then I also get, there’s a lot of people on my journey that don’t want to be visible, and that is just the way it is. But no, that’s my kind of journey in a nutshell and yeah like I said to you, I’ve got one last stage of surgery to go and that’s completion for me. I’ve just started dating recently, which is kind of like, my first experience of dating cis gendered guys as well, and that whole kind of acceptance and erm, reactions as well towards trans guys as well, and yeah, it’s exciting, it’s really, really exciting.  

Int.: Have you seen a change through the years with acceptance in the public but also within the LGBT community in terms of just being trans and all the different identities there? 

Christian: Definitely, definitely I mean obviously I’ve worked now here in Liverpool for twenty five years and I’ve always in some way been part of y’know, the queer scene in one way or another, working or not, and yeah I think it’s progressed a lot. I still think there’s a long way to go. I still think there are divides within our own queer community, too many divides. I think that we saw that with Trans Day of Visibility and Trans Pride this year, and I spoke quite openly about that Trans day of Visibility because y’know, even I felt isolated and alienated and not accepted, because I wear a uniform, by people in the trans community so, we’ve come on so far but at the same time I think that positivity has taken us to a new place of, of divide if that makes sense? I do think people feel much more freedom in the city and are able to identify as they are and its’s definitely more - there’s definitely more acceptance from the wider public. But maybe it’s our own community and population that we need to work on. Certainly as a trans person I do feel…I do feel…I’m just gonna be really honest about it, sometimes if I’m going out and I’m gonna go onto the scene, there’s a little bit of me that just thinks y’know what, I’m just not even gonna mention I’m trans, I’m just gonna try and blend in as a man and gay. Because I don’t want the rejection and that’s sad isn’t it? It’s sad but, that is sometimes how I feel and y’know…whereas really I just want, I just want to be who I am and not ashamed of my trans identity and if somebody said I dunno, “Are you trans?” and it got brought up, “Yeah I am”. But then there’s other times I just think, we all wanna be accepted, we all sometimes just wanna blend in or just walk into a room without a label. So, I think we’re a bit of a way off that yet, but I think a lot of the work that’s going on in the city, around LGBT+ I think it’s going in the right direction isn’t it? But I think it just means that we need to stay visible as well. 

Int.: Okay, so one final question. If you had one message for your younger self just about your whole journey what would that be?

Christian: [pause] I think y’know, I wouldn’t do anything differently to what I’ve done and my journey so, my message to my younger self would be, you did it right and you were true to yourself and you never gave up so that would be my message yeah. Do it exactly as you did it and be strong, be yourself and erm…yeah always be positive. Always be positive about - and yeah you did know who you were. You did know who you were and that’s the only way to achieve your journey really in life.

Int.: Amazing.