I’m Victoria Baker, or Tori as my friends
call me.
I’m from London in the UK, been living in
London for most of my life.
I’ve known I guess that I’m transgender
since I was about 3 and a half.
My sisters used to play with me, used to dress
me.
And the reason why I remember this or kind
of those moments is I was elated.
I had a feeling of happiness that I rarely
get.
And actually for the first time I felt very
different.
At the age of about 4, 4 and a half, my dad
found me for the first time and what I remember
is is that feeling of just hate really, the
feeling of pain and fury and violence and
shouting and kind of being told that you can’t
do something can from a very young child to
be given that message of trying to find who
you are, it’s a big thing.
It lead to a lot of fear, it lead to a lot
of change.
Now, the ages of 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and so on,
through my kind of my early childhood, the
same thing happened.
I was hiding my clothes, I was trying to find
time to be myself, to feel normal.
And each time I was discovered, I was hit,
I was beaten, I was screamed at, I was kind
of told that I was wrong basically.
My dad used to start calling me “gay”
from that time and what it started to do was
really confuse me.
I started to question if I was gay, what was
wrong with me, what was going on.
So I did the opposite from about 9, I tried
to over-masculinize, I tried to become the
opposite to try to protect myself.
We call it “covering” sometimes, so you
add a cover to protect yourself, like an enclosed
case really.
So I did all the things I should have done,
or thought I should do so I did taekwondo.
I was very good.
I’m a black belt.
I was a hooker at rugby, I was playing football,
I was playing hockey, I was playing all the
sports things that I guess as a young man,
I was meant to with that hope that one day
my dad would be proud.
But what it started to foster inside me was
a huge amount of sadness, a dark place.
So at the age of 15, I realized I couldn’t
express myself.
I had no way to get a voice to the world so
I went to music.
And at that time it was my only route to expression
so I went to it very extremely.
I started to play a lot.
I have a lot of hand injuries today where
I’ve actually hurt my hands quite extremely
from the amount I used to play.
But it gave me a voice in the world for the
first time, it gave me expression, it gave
me beauty and all of the things that I was
craving inside.
I was already in a bad place, I started touring,
started to play a lot of gigs and with that
kind of environment I got into an extreme
amount of drugs.
And actually I would suggest that I’m very
lucky to be here today.
I was very young, 24, now trying to find my
way in a world where I had no idea who I was,
where I was going and trying to do an internship
and ended up on the streets of Camden for
about a year and a half, two years, just trying
to find myself.
And for the first time, even in that kind
of melting pot that I ended up in, I kind
of started to understand that there was a
word “transgender” and that I wasn’t
alone.
Other people had similar issues with me.
I saw that opportunity and when you’re in
that kind of at the bottom, you hit that kind
of raw place.
And for the first time I realized no one was
going to change my life.
The only person that can change my life is
me.
So I’m a lesbian.
And it took me a long time to realize and
find comfort in that, the fact that I can
be transgender or who I am and actually still
like girls.
I was confused by this title being called
“gay” and then one day I realized I was
gay, which is quite a revelation again of
actually, “Oh, I can be who I am and like
the people that I like.”
About five years ago, five and a half years
ago, I met a beautiful girl.
Four years into that relationship, a magical
event happened between both of us.
A little girl came into my life.
Eleftheria who’s my shining light, her name
is Eleftheria which actually means “my freedom”
in Greek.
And I started looking down at this very innocent,
beautiful, little girl and actually thinking
about all the kind of hurt I went through
and all the pain and all the kind of hard
upbringing, how could I dare to put a little
girl through the same things I went through.
So it kind of shook me, it made me think about
everything about what I wanted, what I wanted
for her.
I took the brave step to transition about
two and a half years ago.
She saw the change in me, and was very happy
that I was happy.
I could feel that.
She used to call me Lady Daddy at the beginning
and she still calls me “Daddy” today and
it’s something I’m never going to let
her lose.
I’ll always be her father.
I spent a whole life of not being, of hiding,
of not being able to tell the truth.
So I took a brave step to ensure that I live
in the light of truth.
I’ve seen the impact of what the truth does.
It brings people together, it makes people
understand.
Actually I spent a long time looking at the
world and going actually, I felt alone.
And actually people don’t need to be alone.
Everybody is different.
Everyone has a right to be themselves.
