Hannah was 14 when she told her parents she was transgenderSomeone whose gender identity (what they feel inside) does not match the gender identity they were assigned at birth (based on their biology)..¹ She had already been out to her parents as non-binarySomeone who does not identify as a boy or a girl., so she knew that they would accept her.

But "I didn't know how to word it," she remembers. "So I wrote a note and - for reasons that I don't know - I decided to run away, and throw the note behind me. My parents then would find the note, and all would be okay." Unfortunately, that note went under the dresser, and they did not see it. Instead, thinking she had run away from home, they called the police.

"A little bit embarrassing," she laughs. "It did not go to plan!" Eventually the police found her, took her home, and left. She gave the note to her parents, and "an hour later, they came up and were like 'it's going to be okay'. It's a happy ending."

Not long after this, she helped to write a new trans policy for her school. She made sure there was a unisex toilet, cubicles in the changing rooms, that students were allowed to wear their "preferred uniforms", and that there was a clear procedure for reporting transphobicSomeone who shows prejudice towards transgender people. bullying².

"It was just an action plan for me, really, it wasn't anything big. But eventually it became the main trans policy for the school... And all these local area schools started picking up on it. And it grew to colleges as well." Soon, similar policies were being adopted in schools in her area. Now she gives talks at assemblies and pride events.

She is also a YouTuber. On her channel, she records vlogs, support videos and comedy, hoping to show the world that "trans people are no different". One of her first videos was a MTFAn acronym for the gender transition from "male to female". make-up tutorial; more recently she filmed herself bouncing through a blizzard on a space hopper.

There are not many role models for young trans girls, she explains. Most are in their 20s or above. For teens, "it's me and Jazz JenningsAn American YouTuber and reality TV star who came out as transgender at a young age. She was first interviewed on US television at the age of six., who lives in America, then Corey MaisonAn American YouTuber whose father has now also come out as a transgender man.".

Are trans people well represented by the mainstream media? "No, not really," she says. "Especially certain newspapers that we won't name... BBC, they're not that bad, they try to cover it in sensitive ways. But sometimes it can be a little bit patronising."

"I would personally say that it is important," she says. But once trans people have come out, gender gets less important over time, as "it becomes an everyday thing... I don't mind if people associate my name with being trans instead of being, like, a YouTuber. It doesn't bother me." But she says she is not as "look at me, I'm trans!" as she used to be. "If a trans person's life is just constantly wound up by gender... it kind of eats you up a little bit. If you go through that stage, it's fine. But there will be a point where it will end."

¹In Hannah's case, she was born with a biologically male body, but thinks of herself and lives her life as female. She is also undergoing hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to make her body more feminine.

²Although Hannah says she was never bullied about her gender at school, she talks to many trans teenagers who are. "They're always like, 'my life would be okay if my classmates didn't bully me, or tease me, or annoy me for it,'" she says.