Smoothing down my mum’s pink dress, I struck a pose in the full-length mirror.
Perfect!
Then, I practised walking like I was strutting down a catwalk. My dream was to be a model or a beauty queen. But I wasn’t a girl who longed for this to be my career. I was a boy named Petronio. Growing up in the Philippines, I always knew I was different.
Trapped in the wrong body.
I longed to be a girl, more than anything. But I wasn’t... And, in the conservative country where I was born, I couldn’t be my true self. My family was very religious and I knew, sadly, they’d never accept me as anything other than a boy.
Though I had friends I confided in, who accepted me, growing up,…
