Most people probably don't understand what Gender Dysphoria is, and the anti-trans lobby is exploiting that. GD is not being unhappy with gender norms: that's just sensible, as gender norms are shit.

The line often goes something like 'if we lived in a society where women didn't have to face sexism and men could wear dresses and express their emotions, no-one would transition'. It would be great if society were like that, but it wouldn't have stopped me transitioning.

I tried for decades to live as an un-masculine man. For about half a year prior to my starting transition, I lived as an un-masculine man who wore dresses and make-up in private. It's not as if it somehow never occurred to me I could go against gender norms without transitioning.

Transitioning is not about being able to wear dresses and make-up: I love dresses, but I wore them before transition too. Transition is about being able to feel like myself no matter what I'm wearing. Being comfortable in my own skin.

In the past couple of months, I've realised I can slob around in jeans and a jumper and no make-up and feel perfectly at ease. I *never* had that before. I always had to have something to distance myself from my body.

Before transition, I dreaded the moment when the dress and make-up came off. I would stay up for hours to avoid it. I had to shut my eyes and avoid reflective surfaces. Now I look in the mirror, and no matter what... hey, it's Laura.

I could engage with femininity before transition, as a cross-dresser. But I realised it was a stand-in for my desire to be female. Now that my veins are full of oestrogen and my body has started to change, femininity is no longer the only way I have of engaging with my feelings.

There's possibly multiple ways to explain dysphoria, but it's pretty clear that trans people are simply born the way we are. I can buy a neurological explanation: viz., there is a certain centre in the brain that determines whether we feel we belong in a male or female body.

If you want to see being trans as a 'condition', it's not a mental one but a physical one: I am not a 'man who thinks he's a woman', I'm a woman whose body erroneously developed male characteristics and is now correcting that.

Transition isn't about gender expression or norms. It's about having what cis people have already: gender congruity between who we are inside and outside. Cis people often say they don't feel or think about their gender identity. Transition lets trans people reach the same place.

It's only in the past couple of months that I've been able to forget about my gender. Before transition, it felt there was this huge concrete block in front of me all the time; I always had to go over it or around it no matter what I did. Now it's gone. I can just be me now.