Hampshire transgender musician Yui Karlberg lived as a man for 31 years and now she reveals to the Daily Echo how she can finally be herself

By the time he was in his 20s, Brendan hated his male body.

He spent most of his life trying to repress how he felt until a hypnotherapist persuaded him he had done nothing wrong by being true to himself.

Now meet Yui Karlberg, who works as a musician, has undergone hormone treatment to transition from a man to a woman and will have NHS-funded gender reassignment surgery this year.

She said: “I feel so happy I can just be myself.

“I knew I was a woman trapped in a man’s body.

For years Yui escaped into an imaginary world, dressing up as a woman in private.

She was afraid of how she felt believing she was mad and was frightened of how her family would react, even once believing her crossdressing had caused her mother’s cancer.

She said: “When I hit puberty at 12, that’s when I started wearing my mum’s clothes. I got a sexual feeling from it.

“I also looked at my body and thought it was ugly. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror.

“There was a time when I got an ex-girlfriend to tie me to the bed. I said to her ‘I want you to cut this off’ (referring to her male genitals), so she got some scissors and managed to cut it a bit.

“I began getting so depressed.”

It wasn’t until Yui went to university in Portsmouth that she learned there are other transgender people and that other people felt the way she did, or that she could do something about it.

However in 2005 Yui, who was born to a Swedish father and Thai mum and moved to the UK from Sweden at the age of seven, met a woman online and fell in love.

Yui told her about her attraction to men and being transgender, however she gave Yui an ultimatum – either be a man and get married and be together, or be a woman and just be friends.

Yui said she was so frightened of her feelings and of losing her partner, and being disowned by her family she got married five years later as a man.

She explained: “I tried to keep it a secret to the world because it just felt wrong.

“I even thought me being trans was the reason why my mum had breast cancer operations. I blamed myself.

“Until I was 24 and went to university I thought I was the only one, and thought I must be insane.

“I decided to try to live my life as a straight man.”

However Yui could not repress her female side and began living a double life – living as a man with her wife and dressing as a woman with a tight-knit group of friends out to clubs.

“It was still happening. I was shaving the hairs off my legs and buying women’s clothes. It was only getting stronger because of pressure and stress. I couldn’t stop it,” she said.

When Yui told her wife about her feelings, she urged her to see various therapists in Thailand.

She said: “I wanted my wife to accept me for who I was, but she couldn’t. I had to hide my clothes and even get people to look after things for me.”

Yui admitted she had an affair with a transgender friend, a man who had transitioned to a female, who gave her the courage to be true to herself.

She explains: “I told my wife I was going to see family in Thailand, but I went to stay with an old fling. We had met the year before and were seeing each other.

“Those four days I got to be myself full time ignoring my wife calling me.

“I thought ‘do I want to come out of the closet completely? What about the consequences?’I feared what my family would think.”

Yui as a man

Yui realised that occasionally dressing and identifying as a woman in private was not good enough.

She decided to come out to her wife, family and friends, telling them she was transgender and went to her GP to begin hormone treatment.

She said: “I realised you are who you are inside. There’s nothing you can do about that.

“Suddenly I felt liberated.”

Yui said the hormone therapy – taking oestrogen as well as testosterone blockers – feminises her face, softens her skin, helps to soften her voice and develops breasts.

This year Yui will undergo NHS funded gender reassignment surgery at a specialist clinic in London to complete her transition into a woman.

She said: “I am nervous but I am looking forward to feeling complete and not having to put up with the pain I have endured for years with the ‘wrong plumbing’.

Looking at Yui today aged 34, three years after she began her transition, you would not consider she had been a man, but that hasn’t always been the case and throughout her transitioning process she has suffered abuse and violence in public.

Yui was threatened by an abusive man when she was busking when she was branded a paedophile in a vicious transphobic attack.

Another incident, Yui was playing a gig in New Milton when she was confronted by a group of women for using the ladies bathroom.

She explained: “People often look at me weirdly. Even now when I get misgendered by people it feels like I have been struck by lightning for a few seconds like when someone refers to me as ‘he’ or ‘Mr’ or ‘Sir’ when I’m being served at the bank or post office.

“In America, I am referred to as a female immediately, but here I am not.

I don’t really know how to tell them about it. I just want to avoid confrontation. I normally go home and have a cry.

“I have learned these incidents make me stronger. I always believe in using negative emotions in a positive way.”

Despite the difficult times though, Yui, who is a transgender activist, has found strength in music and has no regrets.

She has spent hours busking in Southampton city centre to overcome the bullying she has faced and today is a successful musician working on three projects – as a solo musician and in two bands – The Illusions of Babylon and The Subwave Network UK.

She explained: “I put my heavy makeup on, go outside and try my best as possible as a female.

“I can take my anger out through my music, it’s therapy for me.”

Today, Yui hopes to inspire others to simply be themselves.

She said: “I want to be a symbol of hope. You have to make yourself happy, not others, and you have to just be yourself.

“It is tough. I quote some of my lyrics ‘nothing is ever easy when you’ve taken off your mask’.

“Before I came out I was masquerading, but now I don’t need it anymore. I am me and that feels amazing.

“You have to go through a tunnel before you see a light at the end of it.”

*Yui’s previous name has been changed.