‘I waited until my 50s to transition to become a woman to save my sons’ pain’

From the age of six years old, Ella Byrne knew she was different. While other boys of the same age would happily play together, Ella always felt more at home with female friends.

However, she waited another five decades before she finally realised her dream of undergoing gender reassignment surgery to become a woman, ensuring both her sons had moved out and settled down first in order to spare them unnecessary pain.

Now, speaking in an exclusive chat with Starts at 60, the 64-year-old has shared her incredible story, from being disowned by her parents for dressing in female clothes and forced to live on the street, to marrying a woman and welcoming two sons – before eventually undergoing agonising surgery.

Melbourne’s Ella was born biologically male with the name Bernard. While she had a happy childhood, she always knew she was different and began refusing to answer to her birth name from her early school years – instead insisting her loved ones call her Ella. It caused major upset with her parents however, who struggled to understand.

“It was a shock to everyone, no one could work it out. [My parents] were totally negative about it,” she said. “They refused to call me Ella, I remember once my father took me to the barbers to have my head shaved because I was acting like a girl.”

Ella took to sneaking around her school to play with girls and even started dressing in her sisters’ clothes when they were out.

“I was always cross-dressing any chance I got,” she said. “But I couldn’t do it in front of my parents or I’d be beaten.”

It carried on like that for several years before Ella tragically became ill, suffering from a disease called Neurofibromatosis, which caused internal tumours to develop. It led to her spending three years in hospital until the age of 13 – and when she finally left, her parents had disowned her.

“My father dropped me off when I was 10 and I never saw him again,” she admitted.

Suddenly forced to live on the streets, Ella fully adopted her new name and identified as female. Due to her illness, she didn’t hit puberty until her very late teens, making it much easier for her to cope with her body.

From there, it was a struggle to make ends meet as she battled addiction to drugs and alcohol – all while fearing for her life as she slept unguarded on street corners.

As she began to hit puberty, she was forced to become Bernard again as her voice broke, and several years later, after securing a successful job in fashion, she moved to Queensland’s Gold Coast and started a new life.

There, Ella met and fell in love with a woman, before making the brave decision to open up to her about her true self.

“I had two names and two personas, which she knew about,” Ella explained. “I kept the side of ‘Ella’ behind closed doors because I had to be a man to be in business at that time. I still cross-dressed, I still went to parties and still hung out at gay pubs.”

The couple went on to welcome two sons together. Unfortunately, despite enjoying 18 happy years together, Ella and her wife eventually split up.

She was always very honest with her boys about her two personas, and it was something they had grown up with. However, she kept it largely behind closed doors to avoid them suffering grief at school.

“I promised them I’d stay their Dad until they grew up and left,” she said. “Because of peer pressure on kids you can’t put them through that s***… However, once my youngest left home, I was finally able to change. So I didn’t change until my 50s.”

Finally making the decision to undergo gender reassignment surgery, Ella started a lengthy battle with visits to counsellors before she could even be approved. Due to her medical history, she was blocked at several points along the way, before eventually being given blockers and hormones to start her journey.

Unfortunately, while her sons were aware of her female persona, the news their father would be transitioning permanently to female came as a huge shock to them. 

“It was hard on them, to lose their father,” she said. “They came round. My youngest was good at the beginning when my eldest gave into peer pressure, meaning I lost him for a while. Now he’s back but the youngest one isn’t around. But they’re boys, now men. This could have happened anyway, without me being transgender.”

Ella was 55 when she finally had the surgery – but her struggles weren’t over there. Due to a horrific attack during her younger years, she had been forced to have two surgeries that she didn’t tell the doctors about at the time, putting her in unnecessary danger.

“Unfortunately due to the fact I didn’t tell them about my previous surgeries, I ended up with infection. I couldn’t blame anybody but myself,” she said. “I remember after the [transition] surgery, the doctor came up and said, ‘You’ve had surgery down there before’. I said, ‘Yes I have.. If I’d told you, you wouldn’t have operated’. He said, ‘Do you realise how hard it was? I had to call in another surgeon’.

“I said, ‘Oh well, I’m glad you’ve done it’. He just said, ‘You’re lucky you didn’t die’.”

Having fought for so long to have the surgery, Ella made some special requests for her new genitals – pleading with surgeons to change the usual routine slightly.

“Because of my age, I didn’t want a full, big hole!” she said. “I just wanted it to look like female parts, without being functional. I had no interest in a man whatsoever, so there was just no point. It’s my body, I determine what happens to it – not them. They’d have given me this huge cavernous hole to look after.”

Having finally completed the op, Ella was left fighting the infection in near constant agony.

“It was incredible pain,” she admitted. “It was unbelievably bad. If I’d known I’d have this much pain, I honestly wouldn’t have done it. Every time I walked I bled.”

That agony lasted for a year, before her local doctor helped them find a way of treating it. Sadly, Ella’s sons weren’t close to her at the time of her surgery, meaning she was alone for most of it, but they have since begun to build bridges again.

“I’m the happiest I’ve ever been – some part of me thinks I should have done it years ago…. But I’m glad I sacrificed that time to have the children. Being transgender doesn’t mean you can’t have a family,” she insisted.

In total, Ella admitted she’s likely spent around $100,000 on her transition, but she wouldn’t change it for the world.

Do you know anyone who has undergone gender reassignment surgery?