Joe Holliday - She's a Boy
It was a very strange time in my life
Imagine not knowing which sex you were supposed to be. Joe Holliday was born in 1988 with cloacal exstrophy, a rare condition that meant doctors weren't sure what sex Joe was as his genitals were never formed.
Initially raised as a baby boy, doctors then advised his parents to raise him as a girl, and on his first birthday Joel (his original name) became Joella. In 1998 - after a lengthy and high-profile battle - Joella legally had her gender changed to female on her birth certificate, but never felt right as a female. Joella and her mother appeared on This Morning alongside Richard and Judy in 1998.
Returning to the show, now aged 27 and male, Joe watched a clip from that time and explained to Eamonn and Ruth how he felt. He said, “It was a very strange time in my life. We had been fighting so long to get me recognised as a girl that at that point in my life, I was very adamant that I was. I had spent such a long time drumming it into my own mind that that’s who I was. I was only ten.”
BOOK: She's A Boy by Joe Holliday with Louise Chapman is out today