A World War II veteran has come out as transgender at aged 90, saying: “It feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I was living a lie.”
Patricia Davies said she knew from a very young age that she was wasn’t male, the reports.
“I’ve known I was transgender since I was three-years-old. I knew a girl called Patricia and I decided I wanted to be known by that name but it didn’t stick.
“From about the age of four I didn’t want to play with boys’ toys. I didn’t want toy soldiers. I wanted an ironing board.
“My mother seemed to go along with it. “We went to see ‘Peter Pan’ and I wanted to be a fairy. She made me a wand. She didn’t say it was strange."
Davies served in the British Army between 1945-1948 where she had to take extra care to hide her true gender identity.
“I had to keep my mouth shut about being transgender, you couldn’t flaunt that as that would have been a disaster.”
For decades, Davies felt that she was unable to come out, fearing that it would be unsafe to do so.
“The atmosphere [around being transgender] was not safe. People did not understand what transgender was.
“Because of the general hostility of people I kept quiet. It wasn’t until recently that I felt safe to come out and I felt an overwhelming desire that I wanted to break free. So I came out and I’ve not regretted it.
“I was never totally unhappy. I always made the most of things and looked on the bright side of things. I’ve always had a wicked sense of humour.”
Davies was married for 63 years and told her wife she was transgender in 1987. Her wife was extremely supportive and used to buy her jewellery and call her Patricia.
She decided to publicly come out last year—six years after her wife died—and is now receiving hormone therapy and has officially changed her gender.
“I have been keeping quiet. I have slowly started to tell some of my neighbours. Everybody said ‘don’t worry, as long as you’re happy’."
The 90-year-old was encouraged to come out after watching the BBC series Boy Meets Girl and is now a member of trangender community, the .
