The first ever transgender officer in the Armed Forces has recalled how she hid who she really was in the military for 18 years.
Caroline Paige, originally from Wallasey, served for 35 years in the Royal Air Force but spent more than half of her time living as someone she wasn't.
When the 62-year-old started to live as her authentic self, it didn't come without its challenges.
READ MORE: Aspiring sailor left Royal Navy after experiencing homophobia 'day in day out'
Caroline's first memory of when her gender identity was at conflict with what everyone else assumed was when she was in Malaysia.
She told the ECHO : “I was aged five and I just had this realisation that I was a girl and of course I couldn't understand that at all. My dad found me wearing my sister's clothes when I was trying out different identities.
“It didn’t go down well and I realised then that I felt that I was broken, there was something wrong with me. I didn’t want to disappoint my parents but I couldn’t understand these feelings.
“The feelings didn’t go away just because I was told they weren’t desirable and that was something I had to live with.”
Caroline lived with her parents on different army bases while growing up before settling back down on the Wirral aged 13.
Throughout her childhood, she hid who she really was and could only explore what she was feeling in private.
Having attended an all-boys' school, Caroline had no one to confide in and was hoping to find a distraction in the air cadets, which she had just joined.
She said: "I had this fascination with aeroplanes so I decided to join the cadets to see what it was all about. I then found myself, after doing the course, on my own in the glider, looking into North Wales in a blue sky day, thinking ‘wow this is amazing’. I felt like all my troubles suddenly had disappeared."
Caroline was determined to join the Royal Air Force, but the thought of the military being hostile towards who she really was lingered in the back of her mind.
Knowing that neither her colleagues nor her parents would accept her, Caroline channelled all of her energy into work rather than letting her mind wonder 'what if?'.
Today Caroline acts as one of the CEOs of military charity Fighting with Pride, and has an impressive 35 years of service in the Royal Air Force navigating fast jets and battlefield helicopters under her belt.
The charity, which supports LGBT+ veterans, serving personnel and their families, is seeking compensation for the hurt that was caused by the pre-2000 ban on homosexual personnel in the military,
Speaking more about her own experience of being a member of the LGBTQ+ community in the military, Caroline added: "I had to live a secret life, I had this amazing life where I was doing this job with a macho environment where women weren’t allowed to fly but everyone was proud of me.
“The one good thing about it was that it gave me an income and mortgage and therefore I had my own place to use as a sanctuary and I was able to relax and be myself behind closed curtains and locked doors.
The flight lieutenant constantly worried about accidentally outing herself when she was at work in fear of being thrown out and dismissed as many less fortunate LGBT+ personnel at that time were imprisoned, stripped of their medals or forced to resign.
After Caroline was offered the chance to switch from planes to helicopters in Bosnia and Northern Ireland, she realised her life was moving forward but not in the direction she had wished and decided to do something about it.
Caroline began her transition after serving for 18 years as her former identity and became the first transgender person in the Royal Air Force and the first transgender officer in the Armed Forces.
Caroline felt more visible than ever but with more visibility came more opposition.
She added: “They weren’t ready for me because the ban was still in place and all the people who felt it was not right for me to be in service voiced their opinions and it got really negative for a while.
“Even though I was being told I could stay, the people who I was working with were saying ‘no we don’t want your kind in the military.’
“After that I was outed to the newspapers and ended up on the front page and that’s when lots more people started to join in and say the same kind of stuff.”
With the help of her small circle of friends, Caroline overcame obstacles and served for another 16 years, becoming a tactics specialist and receiving multiple commendations for exceptional service in Iraq and Afghanistan.
She added: “I had to prove to everyone that I wasn’t a danger or a liability and that I had every right to be there.
“I had all this experience and they were wanting to throw me out just because I was transgender so I decided to prove them all wrong.
“I was in charge of all the systems that would protect us from missiles and whilst I was in Iraq, people started to realise they needed it and people started to ask me to go on operations with them as they felt safer with my skills.”
Caroline left the armed forces in 2014 but says she was one of the lucky ones who got to see the military develop from being a hostile environment for the LGBTQ+ community to where it is not with open inclusivity.
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