Meet some members of IndividualiTy, the youth group for trans and non-binary people under 24, which celebrated its 10th birthday this year.

JAY, 17

“I remember when I was a kid my aunt referred to me as a young lady and I felt really weird about it. I always felt this constant discomfort with my existence. It’s like when the image is just slightly out of focus all the time.

When I hit puberty I thought not being comfortable with stuff like menstruation was normal; to hate it and think it’s so weird. I started to realise that’s not how other people felt. I was online one day on this forum for teenagers and a guy had posted in it, talking about being trans and having a chest binder so he’d have a flat chest, going to try get hormones, to get surgery on his chest when he was older, and I was like that’s a thing?

I think it was very relieving to be able to say ‘I’m trans’, but it was very hard to say it too. I don’t know where I got it from, but it was in my head as something dangerous, that if I told my parents they might kick me out. I was so worried and scared. It quickly became too much for me to handle. I couldn’t hold it in and I had to say it, or else leave the earth.