A FIREFIGHTER is on a mission to help transgender people.

Katie Cornhill has faced some of the toughest situations imaginable.

From going into burning buildings to save people’s lives to cutting drivers and passengers out of crashed cars, it is all in a day’s work for her.

But none of those things was harder than telling friends and family that the man they thought they knew was actually a woman trapped in a man’s body.

She has become an equality champion and a role model for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community – both inside and outside of Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service where she has worked for 18 years.

Katie, formerly Peter, is campaigning to make things easier for other trans people and to change attitudes that affected her and her relationship with her friends and family.

The 44-year-old watch manager who works at the fire service’s Eastleigh headquarters and at Southsea fire station knew from the age of five she was different since she was five years old and last year had gender confirmation surgery.

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She said: “When I was growing up there weren’t any gender-variant or transgender role models to help me understand and accept myself.

“I’ve never sought to be a role model but I think its important to acknowledge that, to some, I am.

“I knew I identified as a girl when I was as young as five, and would dress up in nighties and try on clothes that were and still are stereotypically associated with females.

“But when I got older my parents tried to discourage this. I am aware that this was a protective course of action as they feared a negative reaction from family, friends and society that would be isolating for both me and them.

“I couldn’t repress my feelings and, with the exception of my ex-wife and brother’s knowledge, I started living in stealth, only being myself when nobody else, apart from them, were was around.

“As a proud woman, a proud lesbian and a proud firefighter, it is wonderful to be able to help people realise they are not alone, to inspire them to be themselves, and to realise that they can contribute positively in organisations and to society as competently as anyone else does, irrespective of their self, sexual or gender identity.”

Katie, who has two children, is also the founder and chair of the UK Fire and Rescue Service sexual and gender self-identity support network Quiltbag and she is involved in the Stonewall School role models programme, Diversity role models programme and as a mentor for The Prince’s Trust.