FOR LGBT+ HISTORY MONTH 2022, the Open Table Network (OTN) co-hosted an affirming online story-telling event sharing true LGBTQIA+ Christian stories from members of OTN, plus our partners Diverse Church, House of Rainbow, OneBodyOneFaith, Quest and Two:23 Network. Here is Grace’s story for OTN:

I never really smiled until four years ago. I haven’t stopped smiling since!

Almost 30 years ago, eight psychiatrists, among them a Mexican, an Indian, an Italian and a Mancunian Pakistani, had diagnosed me on the autistic, Aspergers and ADHD spectrum. The high dose of Ritalin did its job so since it worked, the diagnosis was thought to be true - except it was not.

My symptoms, like being inattentive, imitated adult ADHD, but the cause turned out to be a life-time of running away from the woman in my heart, shutting that door firmly closed, to live in my head.

At the unconscious level the woman would peep out every so often, causing me to walk and run like a woman (actually I have shapely woman’s legs but never noticed it).

Yes, you have got it, I am now a vain woman. I love the lipstick, mascara, high heels and bras. Now I love to be seen as a woman, my true self expressing itself rather like a teenager with oestrogen running through her veins for the first time.

 True, I am 74 so the analogy is a bit far-fetched, but then I am making up for lost time - 60 years of underlying depression gone, to reveal a happy person - actually I feel the happiest person in the world.

At the Liverpool Pride march in summer 2017, I saw Imogen, a trans woman, for the first time. I experienced a wrenching envy. If only I had her courage to live as a woman!

Seeing Imogen marching at Pride started the rupture in my psyche that would lead to the door of my heart blowing open, and a gorgeous woman stepping out.

That feeling of envy gave way to terror. The woman in my heart was kept under lock and key. Now I was reeling in confusion.

I began meeting with Kieran from Open Table to help me make sense of my gender queerness.

At Christmas 2018, I went with my wife to a charity shop to buy women’s clothing. On returning home and trying them on, I had a euphoric ‘Pandora’s box’ moment. My transgender closet door blew open. I could not hold my womanhood in any longer.

I was OUT! The world might crucify me, but I did not care. At last I had Imogen’s courage to acknowledge publicly the woman I was in my heart. I was oblivious to the consequences. Charlotte, my wife of many years, had been with me on this journey, and amazingly accepted me for all that I had become. Our neighbours, leisure centre, and church all embraced me as a woman too.

From that moment my stony face disappeared along with all my symptoms of Aspergers / ADHD (and have never returned). My 60 years of depression ended. The partition between my mind and emotions had collapsed.

In March 2019 I went to get my ears pierced. From that day on I have always dressed entirely as a woman, and never looked back.

Gone was the scary head-trippy diffident Doc Martin character. No longer did I hate the face I saw in the mirror. Now I am happiness itself, loving myself for the first time.

Imogen, your light shone like a beacon to me, though you didn’t know it. You died in 2021 - on the day of your funeral I had gender confirmation surgery. Seeing you changed my life. Thank you Imogen. I love you too.

To hear Grace read her story, and all of the other contributors to ‘Seen & Heard’. watch here [55 mins]. Grace's story is introduced at 48 mins: