she was a boy; he was a girl

I am a non-binary, female-ish person. With girl parts.

I have had relationships with two transgender people. One of who is going to be my wife sometime in the next year or so.

When I was in my late teens, I identified as male. For as long as I can remember, I have had issues with my gender identity. I will always remember the time when I was six, and I got into deep trouble at school for punching Franny G in the chest because she kept telling everybody I was really a boy. I punched her because of the nasty look on her face when she said it - not because of what she was saying. I didn't really see why I was supposed to be upset by her saying I was a boy. It was like she was trying to insult me by saying I was a kid with some clothes on and some hair.

Fast-forward. I'm eight, trying to pee standing up, playing Power Rangers and climbing trees. I would steal my younger brother's Star Wars action figures and pretend to be Jim Hawkins from Treasure Island. I played with Barbies and My Little Ponies too, but the Barbies would generally go on adventures with Luke and Han and my favourite purple pony would go on a trek through the sandpit (ruining it). I read The Hobbit and rampaged through the woods pretending to be a dwarf or a goblin. I put toy cars into bed and had pet pine cones in shoeboxes with a blanket and some grass for the pine cone to eat.

I can't say I ever remember being upset by my gender. I remember hating when my mother put me in tights and mohair sweaters, but I never rejected 'girly' clothing as such.

The problems actually began when I was about fifteen. Dysphoria raged for the next five years. I hated being touched. I would never have fantasies about myself - it was always a fictional character in my place. Nine times out of ten, that fictional character was male. I associated being female with being vulnerable and being hurt in every sense of the word. Part of me still does.

In my second year of university, I was doing my best to present and live as a male. My close friends were very sweet about this, even though I didn't remotely pass (the DD chest is a major drawback!) I was introduced to this boy Jack, who was in much the same position as I was. Jack and I 'went out' from May until December of that year. In those seven months, we never did anything apart from kiss and cuddle, because both of us were so dysphoric. We mostly sexted while roleplaying our favourite characters from movies - quite often in front of other people. I remember tipping over my half-full pint of cider in the pub during one particularly fun storyline.

It was only after we separated that I realised I still couldn't stand being physical with anyone. Especially cis males.

This, I put down to my disastrous first relationship (which I won't go into - don't want to trigger anyone!) and told myself that if I did it enough times, eventually I wouldn't be as scared.

I told myself this for the next eight years, through three more relationships with cis men, one of whom I foolishly married. It never got any better.

And then I met my future wife, and I had never wanted anyone the way I wanted her. Physically and mentally. Mind, body,

and soul. It scared me. It still scares me. I'd forgotten what it was like to want to be touched, to not cringe and dissociate and to not run to the shower afterwards and scrub my skin off. I'd forgotten that it wasn't supposed to hurt. And I realised - I'd been in denial for years. When I met her, my fiancee was pre-op. I realised I liked girls. I like girls, and it doesn't matter what's in their pants. Now, this took a while to work out - it wasn't exactly a lightbulb moment. It took weeks of confusion, of doodling her name at work and posting lyrics on my Facebook wall that made me think of her. I'd spent years identifying as a bisexual man in a woman's body. Then a bisexual genderfluid.

When we first met, she told me "I know my own." Strangely, I introduced myself to her as a boy - but due to her influence and the peace of mind that comes with being hers, I came to the conclusion that I can be happy with my female body. I am genderfluid and female-ish. I have never felt so unselfconscious as I do with her.

To quote Suzanne from Orange is the New Black, 'It's like you become more you. Which normally is like [mimes a bomb going off] but the person, like, whoever, they chose to take all that on. All that weird stuff. But now it's okay... whatever is wrong or bad or hiding in you, suddenly itís alright. You don't feel like such a freak anymore.'

We have our difficulties, like any other couple. I have myriad mental health issues. She had to go through the pain of hormones and surgery - but we're always okay. And we always will be. Because we understand each other on a deeper level.

And this is why Communi-T is so important. Why we can support and love each other through everything, through our journeys. We understand. We are all misfits together.