There were always clues that Nick wasn&rsquo;t happy with the female body that he had been assigned. &nbsp;Very early on, he disliked having outfits picked out for him and point blank refused to wear a skirt for school. When he was ten, he started to adopt certain identities and male nicknames. For a while he would only wear red or yellow, and even his room was those colours. Then, there came a goth phase and he wanted everyone to call him Alf, refusing to answer to the birth name he&rsquo;d been given, which was a girl&rsquo;s one. Looking back, I recognise that this was someone who wasn&rsquo;t happy in their skin, trying on different identities to see which one fitted. But Nick didn&rsquo;t have the vocabulary to identify what he was going through, and as a family looking on, we didn&rsquo;t either.&nbsp;Nick and I were always close, being just two years apart. As children, our family moved around with Dad&rsquo;s career in PR and we often lived in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nature &ndash; first in Yorkshire, then in the Midlands, Herefordshire and finally on the Scottish Borders. Free to roam in a way a lot of kids weren&rsquo;t, we would go off for the day to climb trees and swim in rivers. Nick was an intrepid tree climber and much more daring than I ever was.&nbsp;Due to living in a lot of different places, we always felt like outsiders and were bullied badly at school. It was mostly taunts, but sometimes included having things thrown at us, or being followed by groups of other children outside school hours. I got taunted because I was 5ft 11in by the age of 12, and quite awkward and bookish. Nick was considered &lsquo;weird&rsquo; by the other kids because he shunned all the things girls were supposed to like, such as trying out make-up. He also insisted on having his hair cut very short and wore boys&rsquo; clothes. Sometimes, I longed for a sister I could go shopping with, or chat to about fashion. But if I ever asked Nick about my outfit, the reaction would be a flat &lsquo;yeah, it&rsquo;s fine&rsquo;, barely noticing. He just wasn&rsquo;t tuned into those kinds of things in the way most girls our age were.One thing we did bond over was drama. We loved it so much, we set up our own club at school. Nick always chose the male parts in plays, which we assumed was him being helpful, as there were very few boys in the group. But now I see that it gave him a way to step into a role where he felt more himself. The drama club was an alternative world where, as we grew older, male members came out as gay or dyed their hair pink, and it was a safe place for Nick to be the person he was.As for boys during our teenage years, I used to mope about them not being interested in me, whereas Nick was always quiet on the subject. But at 14, he shocked everyone by suddenly announcing: &lsquo;I&rsquo;m attracted to girls&rsquo;, and coming out as a lesbian to our friends and family. It was all part of his journey to try to figure out who he was.When he went off to art college, he increasingly identified as a boy, wearing men&rsquo;s shirts and a binder to flatten his breasts. It was a natural extension of what had always been happening, but Mum and I were concerned about the pain involved because we have a family history of back problems, and binders are so uncomfortable to wear. It was awful thinking about him having to put that on every day.It wasn&rsquo;t until three years ago when Nick was 27 and I was 29 that he finally came out as trans, prompted by a conversation we were having about trans people in the news. He&rsquo;d been worrying about telling me for ages, but for me it was a relief &ndash; I wasn&rsquo;t surprised at all given the cues along the way. The month after he told me was a funny time as I tried to get my head around it. &lsquo;Are there new rules now?&rsquo; I wondered. &lsquo;Do I have to do things differently? Can I still give him a hug or is that too girlie?&rsquo; I also worried about how other people might react. We had a very female-centric upbringing: three female cousins and three aunts &ndash; Mum&rsquo;s sisters. It&rsquo;s all women on Dad&rsquo;s side, too. Being a family without any boys, I worried I didn&rsquo;t know how to &lsquo;act&rsquo; with male relations aside from my father. I kept thinking, &lsquo;How do I relate to Nick as a man?&rsquo; or &lsquo;Can I still be as close to a brother as I can a sister? Can I still confide in him like I used to?&rsquo; The main thing that&rsquo;s changed for me is a sudden overwhelming awareness of how gendered people&rsquo;s language is. When we walk into a restaurant and the waiter says, &lsquo;Evening, ladies&rsquo; or &lsquo;How are you girls tonight?&rsquo;, we&rsquo;ve started to correct them and suggest alternatives like, &lsquo;Evening, folks.&rsquo;Nick waited another couple of months before he told our parents. I don&rsquo;t think either of them had any idea &ndash; they were both very surprised and had loads of questions. They wanted to know how his life would change and were concerned about his mental health because of discrimination and negative reactions from strangers. There is still so much stigma around trans people. It took Mum and Dad a few weeks to accept the news but, as time went on and it began to sink in, we spoke as a family about all the signs throughout his life.Now that I&rsquo;ve settled into the idea of having a brother, people ask if I miss having a sister, but I don&rsquo;t really feel I ever had one in the traditional sense. We never went shopping, plaited each other&rsquo;s hair or did each other&rsquo;s nails. We now share a flat and are as close as ever. I&rsquo;ve watched Nick blossom as an &lsquo;out&rsquo; trans man, which has involved him changing his official documents to say &lsquo;Nick&rsquo; and titles to &lsquo;Mr&rsquo;.The medical transition is a long journey and has only just begun. First came the topical testosterone cream, which Nick applied every day for months. Now he&rsquo;s on testosterone injections as he moves towards surgical transition. As I see him change physically, I feel a sense of relief. I can&rsquo;t imagine having to wear a binder, and it&rsquo;ll be great when his breast removal is done so he won&rsquo;t have to. Recently, his voice has started breaking, which is pretty comical. But he&rsquo;s so happy about that because it means he won&rsquo;t be mistaken for a woman on the phone any more. He&rsquo;s getting hairier too, which is strange to see.Nick still gets harassed by strangers in the street, and I find that very upsetting, but he holds himself more confidently now. Not long ago, he held an exhibition of his art work in Manchester, which even last year I could never have imagined him doing. These things are really symbolic and a positive step forward. As his sister, I know it has done him the world of good to start to finally live openly as Nick and I&rsquo;m proud of him for having the guts to do so.

My Sister Was Really My Brother All Along

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{{magzter}} is the World's largest and fastest growing self-service, cross-platform digital newsstand with over 87 million users since its inception in 2011 and thousands of magazines and newspapers across 40+ categories and 60+ languages. Headquartered in New York, Magzter has its local presence in Amsterdam, London, Mexico City, Chennai, Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru, Singapore, and will soon be expanding to other countries. Founded by global entrepreneurs, Girish Ramdas and Vijay Radhakrishnan in June 2011, Magzter enables magazine and newspaper publishers around the world to create and deliver digital editions of their titles to global consumers.