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How has trans acceptance changed since the nineties tried to make double denim and crimped hair happen? Jess Jones recalls high school and how things could have been different for him as a trans kid in the nineties.

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I鈥檓 often asked if I always wanted to be a boy, and the answer is no. Not consciously, anyway.

I didn鈥檛 start gender transition until I was 30, and part of me wishes I鈥檇 known earlier. In a way, the years before transition feel like a lot of lost time.

These days, kids who know they鈥檙e trans鈥攆amily and money permitting鈥攃an start puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy early, ensuring they never go through the 鈥榳rong鈥� puberty in the first place.

I鈥檓 somewhat jealous of younger trans guys who have access to medical transition in their teens who will never have to worry about menstruation or mastectomies.

If I were a kid now, in 2017, I鈥檇 potentially be able to transition at a young age. But I was a kid in the nineties, when most people didn鈥檛 really know what trans meant at all.

Everybody still thought 鈥榯ranny鈥� was an okay word to use, and it usually referred to the kind of caricature of femininity used by sitcoms for cheap laughs.

Chaz Bono was decades away from coming out. People didn鈥檛 have internet access to learn about trans issues. The world was hugely different.

Even if I鈥檇 known I was a trans boy growing up, there would have been no medical transition and very limited social support.

I was bullied enough in school for being the weird kid. It would have been infinitely worse had I been openly trans at that point in time.

There were no gay鈥搒traight alliances or LGBTI student groups for me.

I went to a big high school, and I don鈥檛 recall anyone else even being out as queer.

I copped quite a bit of harassment for being a queer girl in high school, but I can recognise that my gender still gave me a kind of privilege.

Queer girls got leered at, or grabbed, or asked invasive sexual questions. Queer boys got bashed.

Even the way we talked about gay people was different back then.

You don鈥檛 hear slurs like 鈥榩oofter鈥� and 鈥榝aggot鈥� thrown around much anymore鈥攁t least not by young people鈥攂ut I remember hearing boys calling each other those things all the time.

Being gay wasn鈥檛 even seen as an identity yet; we were still calling it an 鈥渁lternative lifestyle choice鈥�.

And remember Ellen being cancelled because an open lesbian wasn鈥檛 welcome on television? It was still a hostile time to be queer, let alone trans.

Boys Don鈥檛 Cry was released when I was in year 11. I saw it when I was a teenager. I鈥檇 like to re-watch it but I suspect it would be too close to the bone now.

I don鈥檛 know any trans guys my age who were out in high school, so I can only guess what the experience would have been like.

I can imagine years of being treated like a freak by a school and a world that didn鈥檛 know what to make of me.

Going through school as a queer girl, and not as a queer trans boy, undoubtedly saved me a lot of violence and trauma.

So, as much as I often wish I鈥檇 known sooner about being trans, at the same time I鈥檓 thankful that I didn鈥檛 have to go through wanting to transition at a different time in history.

In many ways it鈥檚 lucky that I wasn鈥檛 ready until a time when transition was easy to access.

I have so much admiration for kids now who are fighting for LGBTI rights and normalising diversity in schools and communities.

Changed attitudes through generations are now allowing people to be themselves earlier, and I love seeing it. I wish that kind of environment had been there for me and others like me twenty years ago.